Wagner James Au / New World Notes

New World Notes contributor Cajsa Lilliehook just pointed me to this Second Life forum thread of users complaining that the SL Marketplace allows racist slurs to be used as product tags — and that some vendors are taking advantage of that to advertise virtual world content promoting racial stereotypes. I've been able to confirm this is indeed happening; an extremely unpleasant thing to research, especially now. (Screengrab below the break, with obvious content warnings.)

This should not be the case, as original poster Aemeth Lysette puts it:

Little by little, SL has changed for the better, but I still see racist slurs used as tags on Marketplace for various products. This should be stated in the TOS as being disallowed, so we can report items that return when you search these tags. Second Life should not be a place that operates on any facet of hate. Not even for the sake of "free speech". This isn't a country–it's a virtual world run by a corporation.

She wrote that last Sunday. Just a few hours ago, a Linden Lab staffer responded in the same thread:

Screenshot originally captured by Dancien Graves

I am just as surprised as you are that there are some terms that our filter is allowing to be used as keywords. Please know that we do not condone the use of racist/derogatory terms. Myself and others are currently investigating why certain words are making it through the filter, and will work towards a resolution to disallow the use of any others that we deem as derogatory. Thanks again for bringing this up!

So I'll follow up with the company later, to see what resolution has been put in place.

This is not the first time the SL Marketplace has been exploited by vendors seeking to sell racist content, by the way. Back in 2015, after it was pointed out that many copies of the Confederate flag were being sold in the Marketplace, Linden Lab quietly removed them.