I'm not sure if the whole 'adult dressing as a child for sex' thing is illegal in the US, but it is in Australia
I'm pretty sure it's not in the U. S., at least in an online milieu--but it's always been a concern of course, since sexual predators misrepresent their age. That, usually, is against the TOS of most social networks and grounds for account termination, but in role-playing games it seems silly to make it illegal. The thing is (and I haven't tried Second Life so I could be speculating wildly here), SL kind of represents a hybrid--it's a social network with some role-playing aspects.
That Australian law is interesting though. Is virtual child porn illegal as well? "Virtual" in this case typically means animated porn with child-like characters. It's nominally legal in the U. S., although it took a Supreme Court ruling to make it so.
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Date: 2007-06-04 08:32 am (UTC)I'm pretty sure it's not in the U. S., at least in an online milieu--but it's always been a concern of course, since sexual predators misrepresent their age. That, usually, is against the TOS of most social networks and grounds for account termination, but in role-playing games it seems silly to make it illegal. The thing is (and I haven't tried Second Life so I could be speculating wildly here), SL kind of represents a hybrid--it's a social network with some role-playing aspects.
That Australian law is interesting though. Is virtual child porn illegal as well? "Virtual" in this case typically means animated porn with child-like characters. It's nominally legal in the U. S., although it took a Supreme Court ruling to make it so.