Can You Talk Real World Politics In The Metaverse?

During mainstream press interviews I'm often asked what kind of political views people in Second Life have. I usually say something like, "On the whole they're apolitical in-world, but to the extent they express their views, they [mostly] skew either liberal or libertarian."  I still think that's roughly the case, since a virtual world where pretty much anything is permitted already self-selects along that axis.  In my observation, however, the power of immersive presence tends to soothe political differences, rather than exacerbate them.  In Second Life you'll inevitably wind up with acquaintances whose real world views are vastly different than yours.  (Especially where citizens from no one country are in the majority.)  But because you share that sense of being in the same co-inhabited, co-created space of Second Life, you're more likely to see past specific differences, and embrace the person.  I saw that happen in "The War of the Jessie Wall", in which hawkish conservatives ultimately made a tentative detente with their anti-war, lefty antagonists next door.  If that effect's generally true, this makes SL a unique phemenon compared to other Web 2.0 systems like political blogs and community forums, which not only self-select according to ideology, but without a diversity of opinion, tend to get louder and even more extreme, as the echo chamber effect kicks in. 

That's one view, at least.  For a slightly different take, here's a thoughtful essay by SL blogger and podcaster Crap Mariner, who recounts the meeting of a conservative podcast recorded from Second Life-- apparently, the only one.  Things were going well until two avatars cariacturing Senator McCain and his wife intrude on the recording, "looking for a little confrontational humor."  After which, "[i]nstead of making valid points or arguments, a series of snarky (and eventually profane) commentary ensued."  On one level, having a debate with a John McCain avatar suggests a new form of political expression, something SL cariacturist Christophe Hugo has been playing with for years. On the other hand, the very power of virtual expression can turn opinions into images and sounds and interactive sculpture, provoking even stronger disagreement, and with the tools at our disposal, gunfire's likely to ensue.

"I just hope," Crap concludes, "there's not some pair of jerks making Barak and Michelle Obama avatars looking to unleash them at YearlyKos."  There it's hard to disagree, because that might very well make the New Yorker cartoon controversy, which wasn't even in 3D, seem mild.

Comments

[patriotboy]

Was John McCain Weezles disruptive? He's attended those SL GOP discussions three times and has never been warned or otherwise told by the speaker or SL GOP officers that he was being disruptive. He participates in the discussion the same way others do, albeit by satirically to highlight the ridiculousness of some of the statements--"liberals hate the military," yeah, that's a cogent argument.

BTW, Crap. It's "Bob" Barr. I'd be glad to help you to better understand the political landscape the next time you write a political post.

[jnfr]

I didn't find him disruptive, but he was kind of scary!

[Crap Mariner]

>Was John McCain Weezles disruptive?

Yes.

>yeah, that's a cogent argument.

His comments were not phrased as arguments. Just snarky comments.

>I'd be glad to help you to better understand the political landscape

*shrug* The name Barr will be on the ballot. Unless there's two Barrs running, not a big deal there.

-ls/cm

[Jane2 McMahon]

I'm not sure that left of centre politics are necessarily associated with "almost anything goes"...as we well know, people caught doing "anything goes" often aren't liberal at all. I would say that the people who express themselves politically in SL (a very small minority of residents) are indeed left of center, or libertarian. Most residents don't care to share their political views and aren't in SL for that.

No idea what the politically-active conservatives are doing...I'd say they're just not as organized, and Crap would say it's because we're busy doing REAL stuff, and I'd snort, and he'd say heh, and so on. I think conservatives are just as interested in public life and discussing things that matter to them, but unlike the other side of the spectrum and Daily Kos, there does not appear to be a roots-oriented blog or group that can act as a catalyst for them in SL. However, if a Red State or Michelle Malkin want to quit obsessing about the so-called culture war and come on in and do some real talking about real issues, I'd be delighted to help them organize something. Informed people from all sides of the spectrum make good public policy.

As for Netroots Nation, it's been wonderfully peaceful and the panels have been great, especially the interactive SL/RL meet-up yesterday between SLers and RL Austin attendees. JohnMcCain attended that event and was extraordinarily well-behaved, if a tad under-dressed.

[Smileyfax]

I've attended two Republican meetups in SL. The first was ostensibly a discussion on the candidates' positions on health care and what might be done to fix the system in the United States -- but half the time it was just a flame-fest between liberals, conservatives, and 9/11 conspiracy theorists.

The second was more orderly, but I think that's because there were more conservatives there than liberals.

[Sophrosyne Stenvaag]

"The power of the immersive presence tends to soothe political differences."

Yes! I think the mechanism for that is the sense of place, the thing that separates SL from so many other digital environments. Many people take SL as its own place, apart from wherever their physical selves may be located.

Political discussion then has an element of remove to it: you talk politics differently when you're away from home than when you're at the corner pub. There's more recognition of the breadth of legitimate opinion, of the diversity of experience.

I see the contrast in WoW, where lowest-common-denominator political trash talk is commonplace. WoW is people at home playing a game together: it's darts at the corner pub rather than polite conversation at a vacation resort or international hotel.

All politics is local, and SL is its own locale. We've got enough celebrities, scandals and hot-button issues of our own: that's the real red meat of politics. Who needs the tame imported stuff?

[Pavig Lok]

I've met conservatives in SL so I know they're reasonably represented. SL by nature though is international and if there's one thing that defines conservative politics it's that it tends to be guided by local mores - which tend to cause disagreement in an international crowd. Liberal views, due to their flexible nature are less prone to this problem.

Perhaps because of this I've found there is a general rule of politeness amongst folk in sl that one doesn't discuss politics publicly and brazenly when at all possible. It doesn't take long to discover that in such a mixed group of political views, one's own beliefs are likely to be irreconcilable with at least a few folk in any crowd. It is usually prudent not to yell too loudly about them in a public forum, when the place for them is in a more considered and focused meeting of minds.

Domestic political views are more productively discussed with those that at least share the same political framework to hang arguments on. For myself, from Australia, "Liberal politics" is much closer to American Republicanism due to our unique political history for example, and so views on conservative politics exist within a different framework and history. An Australian and an American discussing shared conservative concerns would find much to disagree on.

Conservatives in the US know by now that the cultural baggage of their politics (association with Iraq and what is perceived as nationalism) makes their views extremely unpopular elsewhere in the world and so tend to be less vocal. Conservatives from different countries may share many profound similarities, but often find they share as many differences in how they see the tenets of conservatism should be applied. This difference is easier for liberals to resolve, and of course for libertarians is seldom a problem at all. (Libertarian political arguments are often more about the application of economics at a state level, and less about the underlying principles of their political belief system.)

We know that arguments over politics are inevitable, and often unresolvable. Folk in SL thus tend to learn a kind of ad-hoc diplomacy to stop political arguments devolving onto smack talk. It's not that we avoid politics, but that we quickly realize that whatever our political views, in an international SL crowd there is likely to be at least one or two folk who will eat us alive no matter what our beliefs. There is no such thing as an absolute truth - which in politics is how it should be. Politically the culture of SL makes us humble.

So... I think we can discuss politics in SL, but it is done in a more sober manner. Political jingoism is quickly shot down.

[Tateru Nino]

Like any melting pot of societies and cultures, most of us just don't talk politics very much.

While some folks have made guesses about my own political views, nobody's gotten it right yet -- I don't talk about them. Why, after all, should I try to impose my own politics on others when their own cultures and political systems are different from mine?

[Christophe Hugo]

"caricaturist Christophe Hugo" has now closed his island for good, FYI, due to both censorship and customer mismanagement issues with Linden Lab, and more particularly a staff person calling herself "Minervas Linden".

You might have heard about the whole story in The Avastar (on the 14th then on the 18th). Here is the latest article about this affair: http://www.the-avastar.com/second-life/news/2008/july/linden-lab-scares-away-satirist/article/lab-scares-away-satirist/

I informed Hamlet Au of the going situation of censorship as soon as Sunday, but did not get much support on his part. I want to thank here The Avastar for being impartial in the way they pick the stories they cover (i.e., they don't do it bbased on their San Francisco-based RL fridnships, or the numerous photo websites and companies (Koinup etc.) sponsoring them.

One last point: Linden Lab prides itself on being "autism friendly". For someone autistic, can you imagine how it feels to have an abusive empployee come with nonotice and no word destroy your art work? What the Lindens did is despicable, and will not go unnoticed, neither in the media neither in front of a court of law.

Christophe Hugo
PS: Hamlet, I have saved this comment. I will copy and paste it until you stop erasing it from this comment section.

[Hamlet Au]

Christophe, the chat transcript you showed me had no evidence the Lindens objected to your political content per se; rather it merely seemed to be over Community Standards, which is a significantly difference issue.

[Laetizia Coronet]

"they skew either liberal or libertarian"

I had a hard talk with an Iraq vet over at the Republican headquarters, and I mean a hard talk. I've heard discussions about the negative qualities of other races (particularily Asians) and I have visited in-world representations of neofascist parties like the Front National. Of course, I've been called a n****r on several occasions.
Needless to say that I do not agree with your assumption.

[Hamlet Au]

Good points, I meant to say "mostly skew", as there exceptions outside the liberal/libertarian skew. In fact, I'll wedge in that qualifier now.

[rikomatic]

I agree with Hamlet that more of the social mores regarding political discussions in a diverse audience tend to apply to SL then the internet writ large. I've been involved in a number of discussions on heated topics like the war on terrorism, Darfur and Tibet. While I have found that avatars argue just as much as people, the discussions tend not to devolve into name-calling and jingo-istic shouting of stock phrases.

In fact the only place you in SL that do routinely find name-calling and obscenities is in the group text chat of different political parties, where folks from the other side come in to stir up trouble. But again, that's what happens when you aren't "in the same room" as the person you disagree with.

[LifeFactory Writer]

I would love very much to learn of the corners of SL that are being alluded to by those who say "politics is not discussed here." I wonder if those who have been around for awhile really have any idea of how SL looks to someone who is relatively new (like me).
Psst….SL is highly political.

I hear political chatter everywhere I go: Liberal, Conservative, Communist, Anarchist, Conspiratorial (I am convinced this has become a party)...

To be frank, I am so uninspired by the political landscape today, it would be nice to be able to escape from it. But instead, I felt compelled to make a movie about politics as expressed in SL, because this is the most glaring dynamic I have encountered, and I have uncovered no natural refuge.

The quiet SL corners you say you inhabit, into which politics has no ingress, should be defended at all costs! And, how fortunate you are for knowing of them!

I resort to the busy button and an empty sim as a haven, and this is where I spend the bulk of my time.