Harrison Discusses Home Censorship Policies

In what could become an increasingly controversial topic in future months, Sony executive Phil Harrison has confirmed that there will be no explicit censorship of any images or videos viewed in Home's private spaces. Harrison discussed the policies via semi-official Sony blog Three Speech, where he answered a number of detailed questions on Home and LittleBigPlanet. Asked whether there would be any adult content within the online world, Harrison answered, “Well, it’s absolutely deliberate that there is no physical impact between characters, between avatars." Apparently referencing some of Second Life's more explicit avatar animation and content, he added, "We are going to have animations that will allow you to shake somebody’s hand or to have some social touch but in a very, you know, appropriate way. But no, we’re not going to have ‘those’ kind of animations that I’m imagining that you’re thinking about.” When pushed on whether it would be possible to upload pornography from the PlayStation 3’s hard drive and display it in an avatar’s private space, Harrison answered: “Well, I’m disappointed that you would use those as the first questions. I think Home should be used for a much wider and more beneficial scope than that, but I think that people can express their creativity inside Home in a wide variety of ways and it’s not necessarily for us to dictate what that should be. However, if somebody feels uncomfortable about an encounter on Home, it’s very easy for them to ban that person from their friends list…” Going into detail on the unmoderated nature of public spaces Harrison commented that, “In the private spaces, it’s unmoderated - exactly in the same way that you can send an e-mail to somebody with an attachment on it, or you could have a video chat with somebody.”