Last night, whilst reading the Second Life forums I noticed an advert for Stella Artois appear on the adsense adverts. This was quite a surreal moment as at the time I was drinking a can of Stella Artois! Now as it wasn’t my first, the mind goes into the realms of fantasy and imagines a Google Adsense solution based on my eating and drinking habits that Google detect upon a person … one day maybe, horrid thought but I’m sure they’d love to do that.
However far from the Stella Artois advert appearing because I was drinking it, the more likely explanation is that the Stella Artois advert appeared because there are a few miffed and bemused merchants having their items unlisted from the General rating category on The SL Marketplace because they promote cigarettes and alcohol.
There are a few threads on the forums that discuss this issue:
Alcohol & Tobacco Police On The Prowl?
The thing to bear in mind is that alcohol and tobacco are not supposed to be listed in the general category and this is not a new rule. The listing guidelines cite as examples of moderate content:
Depictions of or references to alcohol or tobacco use.
So if your item has been moved to moderate when it used to be in General, then it’s a fair cop guv’nor, but that brings us to the next question, who is instigating the crackdown?
Linden Lab are not known for being proactive when it comes to policing the marketplace, they only seem to respond to issues that are reported to them. One thought that crossed my mind was that Linden Lab were behind this as they may be planning to lower the entry requirement age and want to make the place squeaky clean. However if that were the case, I’d expect to hear howls of protest from inworld taverns that currently sit on general rated land, there are plenty of them and they can still be found in search, so I suspect this is not a Linden Lab led crusade.
Indeed it’s because words such as tavern aren’t on the moderate word filter that people have been able to list alcohol related products in general on The SL Marketplace in the first place. I would not like to see such a word filter appear either, that would be taking things too far.
I find it extremely silly that depictions of virtual booze are considered only suitable for people 18+, whereas World of Warcraft, which is 13+, has taverns at the heart of its empire, people set their homes in taverns, can buy beverages and even get drunk if they drink too much, the screen shakes, goes blurry and your character becomes hard to control. They even have an alcohol related world event in the shape and form of Brewfest.
However, those are the rules and Second Life isn’t the only place where I’ve seen references to alcohol and tobacco to be considered unsuitable for a general audience. I know having your wares move maturity rating category can hit sales and be annoying, but as I said earlier this isn’t a new rule, it may seem to be a silly one, but it’s not new. I’m none the wiser as to who is behind the clampdown though.
We need a petition to bring Brewfest ram racing to SL.
Haha brewfest and ram racing would be great, plus daily quests to lift barrels of beer!