Congress turns to Second Life for virtual hearing
If you are anything like me, you are not a fan of the popular Second Life. I have tried to like it, going back to give it more than one chance. It just won’t take. So I was quite surprised to hear that the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet held a virtual hearing in Second Life.
Congress is not the place that usually comes to mind when you hear the phrases “innovation” and “virtual worlds”. The committee partnered with representatives from Linden Lab (creators of Second Life), IBM and a non profit technology firm to host the virtual hearing. Most of the congressional representatives were new to the virtual world, visiting for the first time. Their questions about virtual technology reflected that.
The congressmen wanted to know if children were safe in virtual worlds if virtual worlds had churches and religion, if crimes could be committed like money laundering, and if the people in the virtual world and the owners of the technology were even making any money. Overall, the questions were fairly insightful for a group of politicians who were out of their element.
The committee is headed by Rep. Ed Markey, Democrat from Massachusetts (his avatar is pictured above). The hearing was projected on television screens in both the real world and in Second Life, so that both virtual and real life attendees could take part. The purpose of the hearing was to find out more about uses for virtual worlds in real life and get answers to questions like the ones above.
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