Kirk says children at risk in Second Life
The Chicago Tribune is carrying a story about Congressional Representative Mark Kirk of the district of Illinois. Kirk alleges that Second Life "is a risk for children, who could be sexually exploited" and has written a letter to the US Federal Trade Commission, urging them to issue a consumer alert to warn of this danger.
We're pretty sure that Kirk isn't going to get that consumer alert.
Firstly, Second Life's age-verification process at registration for the adult grid (where minors are not permitted) meets the US Federal Trade Commission's standards for same. The verification process for Teen Second Life, where users of ages 13-17 are permitted (and adults are not) exceeds the FTC's standards for compliance.
It doesn't seem like Kirk will have a lot of luck getting his consumer alert issued, on that basis. Either he didn't do his research, or he did do his research and getting a consumer alert issued is not actually his goal in this case.
As for Second Life being "a risk for children, who could be sexually exploited", that seems like it could be a rather difficult chore. There is certainly some small percentage of minors on the adult Second Life grid, but they would be difficult to find.
Admitting that you are a minor is a quick trip to account-cancellation (indeed Linden Lab is traditionally trigger-happy on this issue), and statistically, the average Second Life user that you would encounter in the virtual world would be a female over 25 years of age, and quite likely in their forties.
If you can't actually find the minors, can you sexually predate them? We don't think so. Kirk admitted that he knew of no cases in which children had been targeted by sexual predators in Second Life.
Mark Kirk has had a notable career in politics including H.R. 810 (the Stem Cell bill), a number of environmental initiatives, strong support of various children and family issues and support for various forms of National ID Card.
Our initial impression is that this is some sort of stunt like unconstitutional gaming bans -- few people are willing to stand up and say that something touted to protect children is wrong, however harmful, expensive, misguided or unconstitutional it might turn out to be.
If you are a responsible parent, you should of course be supervising your child's online activities. That's just good parenting, but poor politics.
