Within Second Life (SL), Mona Eberhardt as a persona is vanishing – willingly and on purpose. Yes, the username “mona.eberhardt” is still there, at least until a planned change request is filed with the Lab. When this happens, the transition from Mona Eberhardt to M-Doll 0809A will be completed. The Real Life (RL) creator and typist of this avatar will have completed her transformation from “natural” human avatar to a kinky, shape-shifting erotic appliance belonging fully to Goddess Ani. Already, blogging interests have shifted radically, as was explained last time around.
However, M-Doll’s RL typist hasn’t lost all interest in events pertaining to SL as a virtual world platform and a means of self-expression and creativity. She still cares about the technical, legal, ethical, or commercial developments affecting SL, and occasionally has information and insights to offer. For this reason, despite the existence of several famous bloggers who publish far more regularly than she does, she will sometimes write about topics that need documenting and discussing, especially ones the “big names” simply won’t cover, for their own reasons. However, these topics will be completely separate from “Erotechnica“, which is now the main blog.
In the spirit of keeping the erotic and the non-erotic content separate, it is appropriate for the posts on this blog to be signed “Mona Eberhardt” rather than “M-Doll 0809A”. Also, the tone of writing will be in the first person, as was the case before 2021.
Since November 2012, this blog served several purposes at the same time. It served as a chronicle of its author’s personal journey, her liaisons within Second Life, and also as an outlet for her opinion pieces and virtual travelogues, covering a very wide range of topics, SL- and RL-related. This, however, has often been a source of frustration, as the blog seemed unfocused and poorly curated. Combining decidedly NSFW (erotic / romantic / fetishistic) articles with ones discussing technical, social, commercial, legal, and sometimes even political aspects of SL didn’t really seem “right”.
So, after much deliberation, the decision was made to separate the two types of content into two different blogs: this one will remain focused on SL as an IT product / platform / service. The more intimate articles will move to M-Doll’s new blog titled Erotechnica. Already, several older posts from 2021 have been adapted to the new blog’s aesthetic, corrected, and moved there, and the relevant links on Flickr have been updated accordingly.
The original posts were not, and will not be, deleted entirely; you won’t get a 404 when you visit them. Instead, you’ll find that they have no text or images, but a highly-visible notice with a link pointing you to the new address. Also, over the next few weeks, a more extensive rearrangement of this blog will take place to reflect these changes, and other, non-sexual / non-erotic, posts that were hidden for whatever reason will be restored.
Today, M-Doll 0809A found out it had to agree to new terms in order to access Second Life. This was no surprise, of course. There were bound to be changes after the recent ageplay scandal – after all, Brad Oberwager (Oberwulf Linden in-world) said as much in his rather belated statement that was obviously written to placate angry and worried SL users.
People were right to be angry and worried. The issue of sexual ageplay has long been discussed among users. Actual, reliable information on the extent of such violations is practically non-existent, for various reasons. People are quite sensitive when it comes to children’s exposure to sexual and / or sexualised material, a topic that has long been used by the conservatives as a stick with which they beat everyone they don’t like. Also, SL users are quite protective of their favourite platform, and, having been burnt by previous moral panics, they don’t want another one. Who can blame them?
Now, without further ado, here are the changes, along with a quick explanation of what they actually mean for the users:
2.1. Age Requirements for Use of Areas of Second Life
In addition to the general age requirements set out in Section 3 of the Linden Lab Terms of Service, Linden Lab permits the following:
Over 19 Users. If you are at least nineteen (19) years of age (and the legal age of majority in your jurisdiction, if greater), then you may access certain areas of Second Life, in accordance with our Skill Gaming Policy.
Over 18 Users. If you are at least eighteen (18) years of age (or the legal age of majority in your jurisdiction, if greater), then you may use any public area of Second Life, in accordance with our Content Guidelines and Maturity Ratings.
Under 18 Users. If you are less than eighteen (18) years of age (or the legal age of majority in your jurisdiction, if greater) and over sixteen (16) years of age, then you may access the General area of Second Life in accordance with our Content Guidelines and Maturity Ratings.
TL;DR: If you’re less than sixteen years old, you can’t access Second Life at all. If you’re over sixteen, but haven’t reached the age of majority in your jurisdiction (usually 18, but some push it as high as 21), you may access only General-rated regions and content. If you’re over 19, you may enjoy the “Skill Gaming” regions as well.
2.2. Second Life Age and/or Location Verification for Moderate, Adult Only, and Skill Gaming.
In order to access Second Life regions or listings designated as “Moderate” or “Adult Only” Content (which Content may be explicitly sexual, intensely violent or otherwise designated as Adult under our Maturity Ratings (“Adult Only Content”)), you affirm that you are at least eighteen (18) years of age, or the age of legal majority where you reside if that jurisdiction has an older age of majority. You further agree that as a condition to accessing Moderate and/or Adult Only Second Life, you will submit to account verification as required by Linden, and provide only true and accurate identification documentation to Linden Lab or its third party service providers to verify your age. You further acknowledge that you will comply with our Maturity Ratings, and conduct any activities we have defined as Moderate and/or Adult only within regions designated as Moderate and/or Adult.
In order to access Second Life regions listed as a “Skill Gaming Region” (which may include Content such as games of skill where users utilize Linden Dollars to participate and receive Linden Dollars in connection with their participation (“Skill Gaming,” as further described in the Skill Gaming Policy), you affirm that you (i) are at least nineteen (19) years of age, or the age of legal majority where you reside if that jurisdiction has an older age of majority; and (ii) reside in, and are accessing a Skill Gaming Region from, a jurisdiction in which participation in Skill Gaming is legally authorized. You further agree that as a condition to accessing a Skill Gaming Region, you will submit to account verification as required by Linden Lab and provide only true and accurate identification documentation to Linden or its third party service providers to verify age and location. You further acknowledge that you will comply with our Skill Gaming Policy, and conduct any activities we have defined as Skill Gaming only within regions designated as a Skill Gaming Region.
TL;DR: Linden Lab accepts your word when you declare to its systems that you’re old enough, and tells you “we assume you’re telling the truth, but if you’re not, it’s your responsibility, buddy” – and this is a good policy that doesn’t fly in the face of strong privacy laws like the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation. However, they may ask you, on a per-case basis, to prove your age.
Obviously, LL asked their lawyers for advice and this is the maximum they could come up with – it’s the maximum reasonable solution that respects users’ privacy and still gives them the power to check up on things. However, some questions remain unanswered. They are the exact same seven questions M-Doll had asked back on 29 March, and reiterates below:
Have high-ranking employees of the Lab violated its own Community Standards, Content Guidelines, and Ageplay Policy (and perhaps state, federal, and international legislation), thereby jeopardising LL’s and SL’s reputation, and even their standing as a company and a platform?
Have they taken advantage of their rank and / or LL’s corporate culture to discourage and prevent internal scrutiny and disciplinary action?
Have they taken advantage of their rank to allow others in their close circle to commit the same violations with immunity and impunity?
Do LL’s corporate culture and inter- / intradepartmental dynamics get in the way of holding medium- and high-ranking employees to account for actions and omissions that violate its CS, CG, AP, and state, federal, and international laws that govern its function?
Does LL’s style of employee-user communication allow for “cults” to develop around certain high-profile employees and executives, leading to their exemption from scrutiny for their actions and omissions, and the marginalisation of anyone who has misgivings about such idolisation?
Does LL have a Code of Conduct with adequately strong clauses against nepotism, cronyism, favouritism, mobbing, bullying, and harassment in the workplace?
Does LL apply well-established best practices when investigating violations of its Code of Conduct, CS, CG, AP, and state, federal, and international laws that govern its function?
So far, no statement has been made to address these seven questions, which have been raised by multiple other users. Honestly, without addressing these points, the ToS changes will have little effect on problems like the ones that caused this scandal to erupt. LL will also need to conduct independent investigations of its own staff and if some people need to be kicked out for such violations, so be it.
Mona Eberhardt 