The Raw Feed
Where technology and culture collide

Monday, July 14, 2008

Should Google Censor Lively Rooms?

Google's new Lively 3D virtual chat system (The Raw Feed has it's own Lively room here), is different from Second Life in many ways, and one of them is CENSORSHIP. While pretty much anything goes in Second Life, Google has very strict and specific "community guidelines" designed to make sure Lively is more like Disneyland and less like Vegas. The challenge is this: Lively is ideal for promoting cybersex. Any porn site can create a sexually suggestive room title, then use Google's tools to put porn images linked to the site inside. After launching last week, Google removed the ability of users to put any picture or embed any link into room objects, which makes it harder to use Lively to promote online sex sites, but also destroys the main benefit for people who want to use Lively for social networking or business. So what do you think? Should Google turn these features on, so to speak? Or keep them off, which would erode the value for both porn sites and social networking users?

Comments:

Blogger TheNerd said...

I don't think they should delete all sex rooms. They should set up a rating system, and then delete rooms that are improperly rated. Second Life has "mature" sims, Xanga has a blog rating system, and Lively can easily do it too. If they try to ban sex from Lively, they will be fighting a battle they can't win.

Monday, July 14, 2008 5:01:00 PM  
Blogger slxpluvs said...

What ever happened to the idea of a *.xxx domain? It would be the only place porn 'would be permitted' online. Easy to find, easy to avoid.

Monday, July 14, 2008 6:40:00 PM  

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