Official Statement From Linden Lab On Accusations

[Sid]

Official Statement From Executive Chairman Oberwolf Linden

I want to take this opportunity to speak directly to the Second Life community. Thank you for being part of this wonderful world and giving us the time to carefully assess our situation after we became the subject of a blog post that has the potential to cause harm to our dedicated community memb...

community.secondlife.com

 

[Cristiano]

I made this a thread of its own since it is now a public statement from Linden Lab, not speculation.

ETA: there is also a thread in the SL forums on this as well:

Official Statement from Oberwolf Linden

As this is an official LL post, I assume that it is ok to post here. Please be a little circumspect in your comments however.

community.secondlife.com

 

[Sid]

But everything we discuss will still be speculation IMHO.
So I guess there is really still very little to discuss.

There is still an investigation going on, the results are not in or at least not public information (I doubt it ever will be, and rightfully so).
The announcement that there might be some changes in the future are logical too.
If something significant will change still has to be seen and will most likely depend upon what result the investigations have and what the legal team will advise.

 

[Cristiano]

To reiterate, while this is a public statement, nothing has changed regarding discussion of the actual people accused and being investigated. It is fine to talk about what Linden Lab has said in this statement.

Two things stand out to me in it:

1) "some of the accusations are unfounded" - that is carefully worded, and unless I am parsing it too broadly, it implies only some are unfounded.
2) my concern is that their review of their community standards will see a tightening of what is acceptable behavior and content in SL, including limiting related communities not involved in any inappropriate behavior. I can't imagine it will affect adult content too much, however, given that it is a huge driver of the economy in SL.

Time will tell. but I am glad that they have provided some clarity on to what is going on.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

It's basically a blah blah "we heared you" kind of statement to calm down the less critical crowd, a little bit of appeasment with not much substance to it otherwise.

 

[Cristiano]

It's basically a blah blah "we heared you" kind of statement to calm down the less critical crowd, a little bit of appeasment with not much substance to it otherwise.

Yes that has been carefully crafted not to say much except "we hear you" and some self-effacing mea culpa. It reminds me of a less cringy version of the weird GOP response to the SOTU where Katie Britt breathlessly said "First of all, we see you, we hear you, and we stand with you. "

 

[Sid]

Of course they can only speak in very general terms at this point.
There are peoples credibility and livelihoods riding on this.
In this case saying less is better than saying more for a company.

 

[Cristiano]

Of course they can only speak in very general terms at this point.
There are peoples credibility and livelihoods riding on this.
In this case saying less is better than saying more for a company.

Yes, I didn't expect much more. However, it did feel a little patronizing.

 

[Monica Dream]

The nice thing about something as alarming as sexualized ageplay is that it draws attention away from other issues such as favoritism (eg the limited premium plus going to friends of lindens) and harassment.

The status quo essentially remains unthreatened -hurrah!

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

The nice thing about something as alarming as sexualized ageplay is that it draws attention away from other issues such as favoritism (eg the limited premium plus going to friends of lindens) and harassment.

The status quo essentially remains unthreatened -hurrah!

TRUTH! I 100% believe LL has long taken ageplay seriously enough without an additional, baseless moral panic. Some of the less serious things they were accused of also sound much more plausible.

 

[Sid]

The nice thing about something as alarming as sexualized ageplay is that it draws attention away from other issues such as favoritism (eg the limited premium plus going to friends of lindens) and harassment.

The status quo essentially remains unthreatened -hurrah!

What do you mean with the limited premium plus goes to friends of Lindens?
One only has to shell out the shekels and voila there is the premium plus account.

I'm premium plus and don't have Linden friends (as far as I know) I just pay up because I need Linden homes for my SL business.
Currently working on something for the ranch theme. It can be another theme tomorrow.

 

[Cristiano]

TRUTH! I 100% believe LL has long taken ageplay seriously enough without an additional, baseless moral panic. Some of the less serious things they were accused of also sound much more plausible.

This is not LL's first time at the ageplay panic rodeo. I remember when it first got attention because of a German tv expose on it, and they were caught pretty off guard on how to respond. Unfortunately. the people who have kid avis for their own reasons unrelated to anything sexual are painted with the same brush as those who partake in the disgusting sexual version. What we may end up with this time around is even more restrictions on any underage looking avis.

Recently, an RP community I am tangentially involved in had to deal with the issue of a resident who had an avatar that was supposedly a college student but looked all of 12 years old. They were removed when they refused to change their avi (it is an adult residential community with light rp elements), but not before raging against it being just like Nazi Germany. In turn, the admin of the community went a bit nuts making new guidelines of what constitutes an adult avatar down to illustrations and very specific rules. It was absurd. I am afraid we may see such a reaction on a larger scale now.

It impacts me not one iota, but it doesn't mean I want to see that happen. You don't have to throw out the baby with the dirty bathwater, so to speak.

 

[Cristiano]

I removed a post in this thread because it directly mentioned those accused. Again, I will not allow any direct discussion involving the names of those accused in the blog post referred to in this statement.

 

[Grey Mars]

Is it possible to get a broad overview of which skeleton has fallen out of the closet? I haven't been paying huge attention and have just only seen the official post. Regrettably, it does not narrow down which closet door got left open to presumably public scrutiny.

 

[Monica Dream]

What do you mean with the limited premium plus goes to friends of Lindens?
One only has to shell out the shekels and voila there is the premium plus account.

I'm premium plus and don't have Linden friends (as far as I know) I just pay up because I need Linden homes for my SL business.
Currently working on something for the ranch theme. It can be another theme tomorrow.

I'm talking about the accusation of handing out "premium plus lifetime accounts" to friends of Lindens; and I'm also wrong (mea culpa). That was mentioned in the comment section of virtual secrets but it doesn't seem to be in the original medium article.

 

[Monica Dream]

This is not LL's first time at the ageplay panic rodeo. I remember when it first got attention because of a German tv expose on it, and they were caught pretty off guard on how to respond. Unfortunately. the people who have kid avis for their own reasons unrelated to anything sexual are painted with the same brush as those who partake in the disgusting sexual version. What we may end up with this time around is even more restrictions on any underage looking avis.

Personally, I'm expecting a full ban (for the sake of CYA); but time will tell.

 

[Cristiano]

I'm talking about the accusation of handing out premium plus lifetime accounts to friends of Lindens; and I'm also wrong. That was mentioned in the comment section of virtual secrets but it doesn't seem to be in the original medium article.

The Premium Plus lifetimes were a ridiculously bad value if you priced it out. It would take several years to recoup the cost, and do we even know that SL will be around in 5 years? It made more financial sense just to pay for plus directly on a monthly or yearly basis.

By comparison, I have an original lifetime account. If I recall, I paid about $300 for it in 2003. I have had 21 years of 500L per week, 4096m of land (twice what Premium Plus offers), etc. The number of groups is lower (100 vs 140), but I am not in that many groups anyway so I don't care. Missing out on the premium plus lifetimes seems to have been a good thing honestly,.

 

[Monica Dream]

The Premium Plus lifetimes were a ridiculously bad value if you priced it out. It would take several years to recoup the cost, and do we even know that SL will be around in 5 years? It made more financial sense just to pay for plus directly on a monthly or yearly basis.

Yeah, it felt more like a desperate cash grab to me than anything else.

 

[Cristiano]

Side note - does anyone know if 50 attachments is a grandfathered thing or a result of my lifetime account? I ended up in a thread on the main SL forums about 38 attachments not being enough and people were surprised I have 50.

 

[Monica Dream]

Hah -it would be funny if the Lifetime Premium Plus was true but it was the other way around. IE friends of the lindens took them off their hands as a favor for the Lindens ("come on, it'll look bad if we can't even sell a measly 20 of these things!")