Second Life bears political protest against right wing group

Mike Bantick
Sunday, 21 January 2007 05:32

Opinion and Analysis

With more people heading towards virtual online lives in worlds such as Second Life, it is inevitable that situations that cause unrest in the real world permeate the digital one.  A protest against right wing group Front National turned nasty recently.

In the 1992 novel Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson the term Avatar was first popularised to mean the digital representation of a real life person within a cyber meta-verse.  The story explored the cross over of the real world exploitation of the alternate fantasy reality, inhabited by the books Avatars.

Prophetically, this kind of commercial, political and ideological cross over has increasingly been part of the Second Life experience.

There have been situations before, but, as reported by Ars Technica recently, none as devastating as the protest against the new HQ of French nationalist group Front National.

The anti-Semitic political group soon had a ring of virtual protestors with virtual placards hurling virtual explosive pigs!  From that absurd sounding start, the Second Life war escalated on both sides with combatants hurling abuse and calling in reinforcements.

How did the battle turn out?  See page two.