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In Second Life Without Sex Would Be a Sad Life, Indeed, Regina Lynn has touched what most of big media has missed - the issues surrounding Keeping Second Life Safe Together (the post that will live in infamy forever)... She writes a balanced article:

...Residents all over the globe rebelled: Since when did Linden Labs meddle in content? And what happens to the Mature sims and merchants if people are afraid to express their sexual fantasies for fear of being reported and even banned?

"What is 'broadly offensive'?" asks Amethyst Rosecrans, a long-time resident and founder of Sensations, an adult-content creation company. "They need to be more specific. It is almost impossible with such a large and international community to come to a consensus on these types of issues."

The controversy centers around sexual "age play," which proponents are quick to distinguish from pedophilia by saying everyone involved is a consenting adult and no children are present or harmed. Opponents believe that depicting children in sexual situations with adults is never, ever acceptable -- whether in public or private -- and that "age play" should not be tolerated as "just another sexual fantasy."

The fear is that by stepping in to ban age play specifically and "broadly offensive" sex and violence in general, Linden Labs is starting down a slippery slope of censorship and censure, destroying everything the virtual universe stands for. Many of those worried about protecting freedom of expression are not supporters of age play, yet they aren't willing to ban it outright...

But Stroker Serpentine, a long-time resident famous for the SexGen animation system he co-developed, believes the uproar is unfounded.

"Short of developing some type of bot police regime to do nothing but go around and check grid by grid, plot by plot, for 'offensive' content, they have to address it as it is reported," he says. "We have an abuse-reporting system. It may be flawed but it's what we have."...

Well, the abuse report system is really a joke. But yes, it is a joke we have.

My perspective is that the abuse report system allows anonymous wolves to discuss with the sheep what will be had for dinner. Liberty, as they say, is a well armed sheep. I think the people complaining fear that they are sheep, and that they have no weapons.

Dunno about you, but the abuse report system worries me. The lack of transparency may fleece some sheep... it may already have. But then, transparency isn't a strong point for Linden Lab - and perhaps that is a reflection of what is happening inside Linden Lab instead of being the conspiracy theorist's 'conscious effort' theory.

I'd also like to applaud Wired for having something up on this topic instead of the media blinders which others seem to have on firmly. Bravo!