Age Verivication BS
The new “age verification” system that Linden Lab put in place a couple months back has been said to not work. LL hasn’t really said a whole lot on this, but since they are moving forward with the plans of rolling it out to everybody, it seems that they think it’s enough.
So, now that age verification is in place, what happens when somebody is reported for being underage on the main grid? Tateru Nino tells us about a recent event that makes it look like even Linden Lab doesn’t believe the new system works:
”…Agelock Short was already successfully age-verified as an adult through Linden Lab’s age-verification arrangement with Aristotle/Integrity. That apparently, is not good enough.
An age-check is performed by Linden Lab when they are in doubt of the age or identity of a user. In order to complete one, the user must send “a legible copy of a government-issued identification document (state ID, driver’s license, passport, military ID, birth certificate) that clearly includes both your name and date of birth. This is the only type of identification acceptable for establishing age eligibility.” (quoted from the Linden Lab age-check email sent to Agelock Short, with our emphasis added)
We are at something of a loss here. Either Linden Lab does not bother to check Aristotle/Integrity’s age-verification, or does not trust it. Is there a third alternative that we may have missed?
If Aristotle/Integrity’s age-verification isn’t sufficient for Linden Lab to establish your age or otherwise cover itself legally, or to establish any trust or confidence on their part, why then was it implemented in the first place?”
I agree with Tateru’s final statement on this. Why put something in place, if it something that you aren’t going to trust, in the first place. This just shows that the current age verification does “nothing” to actually verify anybody’s age. Why is Linden Lab paying a company to do this so-called “age verification” if they aren’t going to trust the results, themselves, and still require users to jump through even more hoops?
There’s a lot of other things wrong with this whole age verification thing that I’ve never even touched on, at this site, but I’ll save that for another time. Many others have already made the arguments, and rather than echo their points, now, the fact that this is happening backs many of their points up.
Malignant Narcissist @ December 23, 2007