HA! Rimshot! Go Henny Youngman! More Stern humor. A later-in-life career awaits…

Parents should be keeping their kids away from Second Life because it’s explicitly for users 18 and older. That’s clear all over the website and you have to supply a birthday to register. If you register an age under 18, you’re given the link to Teen Second Life. You can obviously put a fake one in and get access that way, but then you’re lying, and really it’s on parents to watch and monitor what their kids are doing– not punishing other companies by demanding they take care of kids that aren’t their own.

It is not inherently adult either but the content is resident-generated, and like the internet in general, a lot of that takes the form of sexual content.

YouPorn and xtube and so on are a lot easier if kids just want to get free adult material, and those don’t validate ages either.

I grow ever tired of listening to whining, irresponsible people who refuse to take responsibility for their own children. If you spent some time keeping an eye on them, instead of tossing cell phones, computers and broadband at them without bothering to monitor use, then you deserve whatever you get.

Virtual drugs? Are you kidding me. When was the last time someone overdosed on virtual LSD? And pot is not a drug. Get a grip.

The medium is irrelevant. the entire issue is about proper parenting. Let’s grow up and start learning to take personal responsibility and quit passing the buck.

I can only guess that they are panicking now that the Olympics are over. NBC ranked fourth in ratings last season… and there won’t be any more Olympics that can save their sorry junk butts now.

Sadly, everything I want to say has been said already.

1) Like Joshua said: Parents should be keeping their kids away from Second Life because it’s explicitly for users 18 and older.

So stop the parental censorship and “think of the kids” arguments. If you’re not 18 yet, then you don’t belong on Second Life and we don’t want your kind.

2) Regarding the availability of porn in Second Life. It’s easier to find porn on the rest of the web. In Second Life you have to make an actual attempts, since it’s interactive. On Google, you just type in porn and it all basically comes flying towards you.

This says far more about you than it does about Second Life.

Get your facts straight.

However true that it may be that you find these sick and inappropriate things in Second Life, I should remind those easily brainwashed folk out there that you find the very same things in Real Life.

Suicide, drugs, porn and what not occur every second of the day all over the world and right under our noses.

We entrust our children to teachers and people that are respectable in the community only to find that there are people out there that cross the boundaries of behavior. I am NOT singling out teachers but you find the dark side in any profession. It is NOT about a profession but about a sick mind.

People need to know that as much as you can find the dark side inside Second LIfe you can also find many wonderful projects. I do not think that companies like IBM, CISCO, Harvard University, The CDC, and countless other educational institutions are THAT concerned.

In the Real World, we live in and amongst the “dark side” and we all need to make choices.

Second LIfe has a Second Life Teen Grid for people under the age of 18. Granted, there is a large gap of maturity and behavior when it comes to an 18 year old vs. a 35, 44 or 50 year old and I too am concerned for that. But to solely point out a negative aspect in its most extreme without giving an overall view and especially without also reminding people that it also exists in Real LIfe is just absurd.

I am very disappointed that NBC would go out of their way and waste a program segment on such propaganda. They must be in cohoots with virtual worlds or even Linden Lab to stir interest and increase new accounts. If I just believed what I said, then I’m just as stupid as NBC. *which I am not*.

FYI: Second Life is a platform that parallels Real Life. The only senses you cannot use are tactile and smell. Second Life is a virtual platform where Real Life aspects can be played out and that is where the danger arises because there are people out there that choose to go beyond normal Real LIfe boundaries and play them out in a virtual world.

My advise to parents is, you really need to KNOW what your children are accessing and educate them. Technology has given us so much freedom but as parents, your roles are really challenged now. You would need to step up to the plate and educate and form good communication pathways with your children.

I would also like to say that the songs, movies, TV ads and magazines all promote lifestyles that border on hedonism, materialism, pornography and so much more. And these things have been around for as long as man and media continues to control how we see things.

If NBC feels that this reporting is responsible journalism then someone needs to send them off to a refresher course.

I looked for this video on WNBC-TV’s website but could not find it. Would you please post the link so that we may provide our commentary directly on their website? I would have appreciated this from the beginning, by the way.

I compared the reporting to going to a right-to-life meeting, and calling the report a balanced story on abortion. The reporter should be ashamed — they did no research at all.

I requested they do a story as a correction.

I hope personally that they apply some consequences to the reporter.

To make a comment on their web site, go here:
http://www.wnbc.com/contactus/index.html

Shava Nerad
shava suntzu in SL

I won’t even discuss the pedophile areas found in Second Life that was discovered by Skynews. It speaks for itself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN_jr6xjs90

At one point you could even advertise for Ageplay (adult –child Avitar sex) sex with virtual children. Please post for me the explanation you have for a 12 year-old-curious kid who stumbles upon a person who defecates in another person’s mouth (which can be found in open free areas of SL)
I guess if somebody did an article on the dangers of MySpace before poor Meghan Miers killed herself that would have been a waste of time or media propaganda? I love America and a solid business model but sitting on a cozy yacht while children are put at risk is not my cup of tea. I can rest my head on my pillow at night on the side of advocating for the health and safety of children.

So to my Kool-aid drinking techies, when the first child dies due to some horrible exposure that they had in a virtual world, come back to this blog and re-read your educated comments.

Before a child dies because of *whatever* influence the *dark side* of the web (Second Life) had on their still developing brain let’s get really REAL here.

Unfortunately, society has more than a handful of sick, demented, cruel people. Unfortunately too, these sick, demented, cruel people also happen to like being in virtual worlds. Hey, it’s a free country. I mean, it’s a free virtual world.

Has it ever occurred to you that before someone logs into Second Life they have to sign up for an account, activate it, learn to manoeuvre around it etc … and off course kids nowadays are very computer literate. However, it’s far easier to simply GOOGLE any thing and a plethora of links gets shown.

It’s not about what’s in virtual worlds that we have to worry about. It’s what’s out there in REAL LIFE. It is also what under aged children are accessing via the internet by simply searching and clicking on the links. It is also what children find in their homes left my their parents, older siblings etc … It is also what is shown on movies and television and ads and commercials and magazines that children form their view of what is right or wrong in the world.

So before anyone blames anything degrading or any inappropriate thing found in a virtual world, we need to simply look around us in our neighborhoods and clean the sh*t up.

I would also like to point out that parents have a very important responsibility, particularly NOW that the internet is like a doorway to hedonism.

If children are accessing virtual worlds like Second Life where things that happen in Real Life also abound .. only difference is, it is virtual … where are the parents?