Earth to Linden Labs ... come in, Linden Labs ....

Hopefully, at this point everyone has heard about Linden Lab's absurd expulsion of Rose Borchovski's "The Kiss" from SL7B, and later Misprint Thursday's piece as well, due to their cardinal sin of creating works that show ... nipples. Not erotic works -- the pieces showed the nipples of a cartoonish child and of naked Barbie dolls. Pretty much every child under the age of eight has seen as much, but Linden Labs found them shocking, demonstrating ridiculous immaturity and prudishness. (Or maybe hypereroticism: I'm reminded of Tom Lehrer's satirical song "Smut," with the wonderful line, "When correctly viewed, everything is lewd.")

Rose Borchovski's banned work

Misprint Thursday's banned work

There's not a lot I can add to what others have written (e.g., New World Notes, and I liked Soror Nishi's comments), except to join the chorus of boos and express my own incredulousness and disgust at LL's behavior.  Yeah, their rules for SL7B say "no nudity," but come on!

A petition was sent to Linden Labs by artists to protest the censorship (which I didn't sign, because it was expressly from artists and I don't care to misrepresent myself). I hope it has some impact but I'm skeptical. I have to assume the members of the Linden Endowment for the Arts (well-regarded figures all) know about what happened, but I haven't heard if they've done anything.

Linden Labs: grow up!