'Second Life' takes tough stance on taboos
Second Life has come under fire for some taboo sexual behavior among residents of the online world. Now maker Linden Lab is trying to lay down the law regarding what is and isn't permitted in Second Life, but not all its residents are happy about it.
Context & Ripple Effects
The crackdown follows weeks of escalating pressure: a May 9 BBC report detailed a German TV investigation into a Second Life group trading child abuse imagery, and by late May the first legal challenge against Linden Lab was underway, testing how real-world law applies inside the world. The company's answer is its own blog post, "Keeping Second Life Safe, Together", which bans certain real-life imagery and avatar portrayals.
The move lands on a world whose governance record was already contested — from a hidden virtual-world prison uncovered in early 2006 to an ongoing dispute over the stability of its virtual economy. With CNET's report noting that not all residents welcome the new rules, Linden Lab is choosing legitimacy with newcomers and regulators over its anything-goes reputation.
First-order effects
- Residents running ageplay or other now-taboo roleplay lose their permitted status immediately under the new content standards, while the broader community gains explicit rules on what imagery and avatar portrayals are banned.
- Linden Lab inherits an enforcement burden: policing user-generated content at scale for the first time, just as the first legal challenge against the company forces it to show real law can be enforced in-world.
Second-order effects
- The restrictions sharpen the platform's split identity — a business courting mainstream users and corporate presence versus the libertarian resident base that built its culture — raising churn risk among exactly the early adopters who sustain activity.
- Competing virtual worlds can position themselves as either safer or freer alternatives, turning content moderation policy into a competitive differentiator rather than a back-office function.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, open user-generated worlds converge on the same managed-platform governance as web services: written acceptable-use policies, proactive moderation, and legal accountability — ending the era of 'the residents govern themselves' as a credible default.
The trend: Virtual worlds are shifting from ungoverned frontiers to liability-managed platforms, with content policy set top-down once real-world legal and press scrutiny arrives.