History/Adult content

Help Portal:

This page compiles Adult Content info at-a-glance so you can easily see the history of what's happened and better understand what's to come.

During 2009, changes to the way adult content is handled in Second Life were made. The main goal of these changes is control over your experience: if you don't want to see adult content, you have that choice. If you do want to see it, provided you're account-verified, you can. The changes include:

Creating a new region maturity rating of "Adult", in addition to the existing "PG" and "Mature",
Changing how the search functions work
Requiring "verification" to access the adult regions and search settings, and
Updating policy (Terms of Service, Community Standards, Knowledge Base articles, etc.) to go with these changes.

To make these changes required updates to the server software (version 1.26 and later) which hosts grid Regions, and the Viewer software (version 1.23 and later) which runs on your local computer.

Adult Content FAQ

For Frequently asked questions about this subject, please see the related Adult Content FAQ page.

Timetable

Initial Announcement - 12 Mar 2009
Release of 1.23 client software - 15 Jun 2009
New Adult mainland opens for visits - 15 Jun 2009
Move tickets for Adult Mainland accepted - 29 Jun 2009 10am Pacific Time to 24 July 2009 10am Pacific Time^[1]
Email notifications to landowners - Started 26 Aug 2009
Auction of remaining Adult Mainland regions - Started 8 Sep 2009^[2]
End of policy transition period - 15 September 2009 ^[3]

Region Ratings

Previously there were only two ratings for map regions on the SL Main Grid: PG and Mature, and they were open to anyone to visit. Now there is a new category, Adult, which only "verified" accounts with the right settings activated can visit.

After 15 Sep 2009, publicly promoted Adult Content is supposed to be stored either on Regions on the newly built Zindra mainland "continent" or on private Regions having the Adult Region rating. Estate owners can set their region ratings as they choose, and it is expected they will change or create adult rated regions according to the demand for it.

As of 20 Sep 2009, 1187 private regions were rated Adult, and 313 mainlaind regions (mostly Zindra). Together they represent 5.14% of the 29,192 region total grid area ^[4]

Zindra Move

Kama City

Previously existing mainland regions will not have their maturity rating changed. Therefore mainland landowners with public adult content will need to either move to the new Zindra continent, which is all adult rated regions, or to Private regions which are rated adult.

Existing venues which were significantly impacted by these adult changes were given a chance to move to Zindra via a SL Knowledge Base: Support Ticket, submitted from 29 Jun 2009 until 24 July 2009. Approximately 850 move tickets were submitted. The remaining land on Zindra started to be auctioned by Linden Lab starting 8 Sep 2009. For those who need to migrate to Zindra this link may be helpful:

Guide to moving builds from one Region to another

Maps of Zindra as it has developed can be found on the linked page. The most current map can be found on the SLurl Map page. The initial map of Zindra contained 157 regions. Due to high demand, this was significantly increased during 3-10 July 2009. At least 531 regions have been named, so Zindra could grow that large if there is enough demand for it.

Changes to Search

There are three search functions: Internal to the viewer, and two on the website.

Viewer Search - Starting with version 1.23, there are check boxes in most tabs in Search for PG, Mature, and Adult. This determines what kind of regions your results will come from, and what words may be filtered out of your query. You can choose the checkboxes in different combinations (they are not exclusive), and use different settings on each tab. If you are not "verified", the adult checkbox will not be available (greyed out).

If you do not have the adult checkbox active, certain input words to search will be "filtered". That means they are ignored as if you did not type them, and you get a message about it in the results window. There are a few words which are filtered no matter what setting you use. These refer to banned activities such as ageplay and gambling. An additional 60 or so english words are filtered if you do not have the Adult box active, mostly referring to sexual activities.

search.secondlife.com - Input words are always filtered on this search. Results from Adult regions, and parcels on other regions with the "Mature Content" flag set in About Land are excluded.

maps.secondlife.com - Input words are not filtered on this page. Results from Adult regions, and parcels on other regions with the "Mature Content" flag set in About Land are excluded.

Account Settings

To use the adult settings, you need to "verify" your account. This is done in one of three ways: (1) Use the age verification page on the SL website, (2) Provide payment information on the SL website, or (3) Provide payment information on the XStreetSL site (which is owned by Linden Lab).

Verification links:

Once you have account verified by one of these methods, you are supposed to get access to the adult settings. You will need to go into top menu Edit > Preferences > General Tab > Rating and choose "PG, Mature, and Adult" from the dropdown list. If you have a lower setting, then search and region entry or teleport will be restricted to PG only, or PG and Mature only.

If you have a problem verifying or accessing adult settings then file a support ticket.

Documentation and Downloads

Numerous changes have been made to Linden documents and software to incorporate the adult content changes. This includes the Community Standards, Knowledge Base, and Wiki.

Community Standards

The Community Standards, which govern behavior in Second Life were updated 25 Jun 2009, although enforcement was delayed until 15 Sep 2009 to allow landowners to move or change their content. In particular item 5: "Adult Regions, Groups, and Listings" was changed.