Looks like Philip Lindens visit to congess went over like a shit balloon

Banning Second Life: Congressman Aims to Restrict Access to the Virtual World

Illinois Representative Mark Kirk has a bone to pick with Second Life and other social networking sites over what he feels is a lack of protections for minors who use them. He called upon the Federal Trade Commission yesterday to "investigate the growing vulnerability of children to predators on Second Life."

The congressman fired off a press release stating he'd sent a letter to the FTC's chairman asking for a "consumer alert" to be issued about the dangers of Second Life. Kirk claimed there are no age verification procedures built into Second Life registration despite the popular social networking service's claims of preventing children from accessing it.

Second Life Vixen"During the past five years, social networking Web sites like MySpace, Facebook and Second Life exploded in popularity," Congressman Kirk wrote. "As more kids flock to these sites, we've seen a corresponding increase of online sexual predators targeting children."

Kirk added, "Sites like Second Life offer no protections to keep kids from virtual 'rape rooms,' brothels and drug stores. If sites like Second Life won't protect kids from obviously inappropriate content, the Congress will."

Kirk seeks once again the passage of a bill called "Deleting Online Predators Act," which passed the House in 2006 but died in the Senate. The act would require schools and libraries to prevent children from accessing Second Life and other social networking Web sites unless it was for educational purposes and under adult supervision.

Linden Labs, the developers of Second Life, in turn issued a statement defending their creation. This statement, as it appeared in the Chicago Tribune, read in part "Members of the Second Life community, including Linden Lab staff, actively monitor against minors accessing the [adult portion of the] service."

The question here is obviously: how much of a real threat is Second Life, especially when you consider children run huge risks of running into sexual predators in unmoderated chat rooms and such? As Ars Technica points out, Second Life does, in fact, have age verification technology in place.

That being said, Second Life is not exactly the most G-rated of places online. Take this recent real-world lawsuit over the theft Second Life related "adult-themed virtual objects." This move by Kirk does seem to be a bit of a play to the cameras, but perhaps he does have a point that it is easy for kids to get into stuff online which is not age appropriate.

CREDIT - PC World contributor Nino Marchetti