I’ve been closely following the ongoing saga of the Federal Governments attempts to implement a national filtering schema to prevent access to what it deems to be questionable or inappropriate material. While a fair proportion of these sites seems to fall into the category of adult material (pornography) or hate speech, there are also a few notable instances where this is not the case.
The Sydney Morning Herald recently reported:
“The Federal Government has now set its sights on gamers, promising to use its internet censorship regime to block websites hosting and selling video games that are not suitable for 15 year olds.”
The article went on to name SecondLife and World of Warcraft specifically, saying “the move to extend the filtering to computer games would place a cloud over online-only games such as World of Warcraft and Second Life, which aren’t classified in Australia due to their online nature.”
So far the SMH article is the only one I’ve seen that has specifically named these two sites specifically, and made any suggestion that they might fall victim to the filters. I haven’t heard similar reports from politicians or government offices. So at least for the moment it would appear that this is not a preordained fate for SL or WoW.
Torley's Tweet provides room for optimism on the fate of SL in Australia
Importantly just moments ago, Torley from Linden Labs posted a Tweet that read “Linden Lab has received no indications from the Australian government that it plans to block Second Life.” The Tweet points to a web link that appears to be a blog post by Linden Labs, however attempting to access the post yields a message indicating “It appears you’re not allowed to view what you requested. You might contact your administrator if you think this is a mistake.”
Access to the blog post is currently unavailable however.
So at this point I’m unable to reiterate exactly what the blog post has said. I mentioned this to Torley in the hopes of getting in to read the exact message. If and when it’s opened up I’ll try to pass along the details.
I've received an official comment from Linden Lab. The statement reads:
“Linden Lab has received no indications from the Australian government that it plans to block Second Life and will keep our community apprised of any developments on that front. In the meantime, we want to assure Australian Residents that Second Life remains accessible and functioning in your region.
Australia has and will continue to be an important market for Linden Lab, and we’re committed to providing the best possible Second Life experience for the users in that market. Some of the most exciting uses of Second Life have come out of Australia, a diverse community of Residents that includes major universities, large enterprises and many thousands of consumers, who spend hundreds of thousands of hours inworld each month.”
I believe that's what Torley was referring to.
Hi Dusan,
Thanks very much for that. It does shed some light on things. Though it also reads like a PR statement intended to make people feel more secure in the future of the environment.
My view is the SMH article was purely speculative about one potential worst case outcome, and not based on any real evidence that it is the government's intention.
Ultimately I think we'll all just have to wait and see what happens. Thanks again for shedding some light on things.
Agreed. But see my blog (or don't bother I'll say it here)….because Linden Lab has a secret weapon if this all goes the awful way it COULD – they can simply send Philip Rosedale down to talk about how the future of the Internet is really electricity (yeah, he actually said that), give them courses on meditation, and all will be well.
As a matter of fact I was just reading the comments on your latest post:
“Australia's Second Life Ban Linden Comments“
I'll happily link to it here because it looks like a great resource for discussion on virtual worlds (not just SecondLife but others like OpenSIM too from the look of things).
As for Philip Rosedale, I'd better read up on who that is exactly. Then perhaps that joke would make more sense to me. LOL