Second Life has always been heralded as the next step in virtual living, and the Mecca of free, unhindered speech, but much like public pools, moustaches and Chinatown pedophiles had to go and ruin it for the rest of us.

According to this blurb over at the BBC (the only company to ever make the corpse of George Orwell cry), German police have been following allegations that some Second Life inhabitants have been trading in "child abuse" images. While it's entirely possible that people are trading pictures of burn marks and wire hangers, here in the Yoo-Ess-of-Ay, we prefer the term "kiddie porn", or "dude, seriously, that's f*cked up".

Here's a snippet regarding the German news programme that led to the police investigation:

Second Life, as its name implies, is a virtual world in which members create an avatar and then use that character to live out a separate existence.

The investigation was carried out by Nick Schader from the Report Mainz news programme who is also a member of Second Life.

Mr Schader was asked to pay to attend meetings where virtual and real child pornography was being shown.

Members of this group also offered to put him in touch with traders of real child pornography.

The investigation also uncovered so called "age play" groups that revolve around the abuse of virtual children.

Information gathered during the report was passed to the prosecutor's office in Halle who said it hoped to track down the German Second Life user who shared the images of virtual child pornography.

Whatever happened to the Second Life of my youth? In those days, you would always have a kind word for your elders, you would always carry an apple to feed the copulating centaurs, and you never even contemplated child pornography (aside from the weekly Muppet Babies Scat Film Festival). 

[Via Game|Life, non-sexual shoulder rub to Something Awful for the only Second Life image I've ever liked.]