Second Life

Bringing Second Life Everywhere: Mobile and Desktop Updates

Our development team is working tirelessly to make Second Life accessible wherever you are, whether you're on a mobile device or sitting at your desktop. While our Mobile App is still in Private Alpha, we’re looking forward to expanding access to more members of our community shortly. Our new App promises to bring all the richness and beauty of Second Life directly to your mobile phones and tablets. Don't miss our latest developer update video for a sneak peek at what’s coming!

On the desktop front, we're gearing up for a wider release of some of your most requested features for the Second Life Official Viewer. We're particularly excited about rolling out innovations like Mirrors and 2K textures, which were showcased in a recent "Lab Gab" video.

Making Second Life Safer: Strengthening Community Protections

Our priority has always been to maintain a safe and welcoming environment for all while preserving the freedom of expression that makes our virtual world so special. That’s why we’re working to further enhance the safety and protection of the Second Life platform. These efforts include strengthening some of our community and employee policies as well as evaluating improvements to our age verification process.

One area of ongoing scrutiny both internally and externally concerns child-presenting avatars. We recognize and want to acknowledge the vibrant community of residents who enjoy roleplaying as such, and we also feel that it is crucial to reinforce our stance that sexualized ageplay is strictly prohibited. Today, we are updating our Child Avatar Policy to ensure a clear separation and to safeguard all community members. We know that this update has the potential to cause confusion or concern in our community, so we’ve prepared an FAQ which we will continue to update as questions come up.

Strengthening Internal Policies and Community Engagement

We recently posted our initial response to community concerns about alleged violations of company and community policies by employees, contractors, and community members. Since that time, we have conducted multiple thorough investigations to look closely at whether there were specific infractions or problematic interactions that needed us to take action.

The investigation determined that all Lindens and contractors have stayed in compliance with our own community guidelines, as well as unwritten, ethical guidelines. I do not make this statement lightly, and I know there will be plenty of discussion. What I can say is that there is no incentive, monetary or otherwise, for me to mislead the community. At some point, the community has to trust that we, the Lindens, do well when the community thrives. We may make mistakes along the way, and we know that our community will engage with us when we do. Second Life is an enormous virtual world and we have to walk a very fine line between policing and preserving freedoms while also protecting the future growth and health of Second Life as a platform that respects diversity and creative expression among our community.

The findings did highlight opportunities for improvement. As a result, we are making updates to our internal policies to raise the standard for how Linden employees should respectfully engage with community members. This addresses multiple forms of engagement including how we present ourselves, how we interact with the community (even in moments of conflict), and how we minimize the perception of conflict of interest and favoritism in our interactions. Additionally, there have been specific actions we have initiated or finalized:

Updated our Child Avatar Policy

Updated our internal Policies and Procedures

Implemented personnel changes

Initiated management improvement programs

Committed to Community Roundtables (see below)

Committed to increased transparency and accountability

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