by Jessica Reed
Today I shall shamelessly self-appoint myself as openDemocracy's Second life reporter, and once again blog news from the virtual front - as done before here, here, and at the end of this entry.
Geeks and desk-workers alike will be delighted to learn that you can now actively protest without leaving your desk: Second-life based protests (and if it escalates, even riots). It all started relatively simply when a suporter of the french extreme right-wing politican Jean Marie LePen decided to set up virtual and official headquarters for the party (Front National, also known as FN) in Second Life. And funnily enough while LePen has been accused of hate speech and violence more times that i can recall, it turns out that the e-HQ can be found nearby a gun shop.
As it stands, the FN is not the first political party to own land in Second life (the ex Virgignia governor, the independent british party and four members of the Dutch party all said their avatars or HQs could be found online), but it is certainly the first to trigger such outrage and protests days after its implementation. The Second Life Herald (yep, I know...) published a very entertainning story relating the riots that quickly ensued, all of which opposed fervent pro-FN sympathisers to scandalised FN opponents who decided to show their dissaproval by brandishing signs urging everyone to get rid of Le Pen supporters' invasive tactics. Wagner James offers us a fascinating first hand account of the "situation" on his blog New World Notes, in which he describes how the antiFN and SL Left Unity groups had "placards and T-shirts, and billboards on the land of sympathetic neighbors, all making plain that FN's arrival in Second Life was distinctly unwelcome".
Liberation's tech blog mentions that many caricatures of presidential candidate Segolene Royale are already floating around Second Life. Now, I'd like to see is a Battle Royale (-vs Sarkozy of course).
Picture via New World Notes.
