Avatars for Kamala: Why US Players of Fortnite, Second Life, VRChat & Other Metaverse Platforms Should Vote for Harris/Walz

SL image by Alsatian Kidd, who also has thoughts on the election

When I briefly noted that Philip Rosedale had endorsed Harris/Walz during a recent YouTube livestream (watch below), some reader comments were somewhat surprising:

Like Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner with family, politics really should not be discussed, and it really has no place in SL

Rule #1 about all video games. Keep. Politics. Out. Of. Games.

But Second Life is not even a traditional game: It’s a metaverse platform, which by definition, is integrated with the real world economy -- and is therefore subject to government regulations formulated by elected politicians. Second Life content creators regularly receive bills from the IRS, which even has a written policy about taxing Linden Dollars; SL content must adhere to US laws banning online gambling, and so on.  

There are hundreds of very good reasons to vote for Kamala Harris and vote against Donald Trump. But even if you are only thinking about the future well-being of your favorite virtual world/metaverse platform, and the user communities in them -- be it Second Life, Fortnite, VRChat, or many others --  here are a couple core reasons to cast your vote for Kamala:

Retaining Lina Khan to Protect Metaverse Companies & Consumers

Lina Khan, appointed by Biden/Harris as Chair of the Federal Trade Commission, has been a fierce defender of both metaverse platform users and players against powerful interests. 

Last year, her FTC won a $245 million refund for Fortnite players targeted by “dark patterns to trick players into making unwanted purchases and let children rack up unauthorized charges”. 

And then this year, her FTC filed an amicus brief in support of Epic’s bid to require Google to open up in-app payment options apart from Google Play. As Tim Sweeney has often said, both Apple and Google’s control of mobile payment systems and their 30% commission fees threaten the future of the Metaverse. Just this week, Linden Lab’s Brad Oberwager mentioned to me how this IAP 30% charge is a serious challenge for fully bringing Second Life to mobile.

There’s a huge number of other outstanding challenges for metaverse platforms. If Harris/Walz win, Lina Khan will in all likelihood remain head of the FTC.* If Trump wins, Khan -- already a target of GOP animus and powerful donors -- will be gone. Leaving metaverse consumers and creators to fend for ourselves. And whoever Trump/Vance appoints when Khan is gone, I wouldn't expect a full SL mobile app during their reign.

There’s an even more important metaverse-centric reason to support Harris/Walz:

Protecting an Essential Metaverse Community: LGBT People 

Unique to all Internet services, metaverse platforms have very large LGBT communities. In a user survey I conducted with top VRChat streamer Syrmor, nearly 1 in 5 VRChat users identified as trans/non-binary, or otherwise outside traditional cis male/female categories. I suspect this is the case with other virtual worlds; Second Life has hundreds of trans-related groups.

By their very nature, metaverse platforms offer people a place to express their sexual/gender identity through their customizable avatar, often in ways that would be difficult or even dangerous to do in the real world. As Cajsa recently wrote:

Ishtar Angel is a male-to-female transgender person who presents as nonbinary in her first life.  “It was Second Life that actually helped me realize I was trans,” she said. “I may be stalled in my transition, but I would not give up knowing who I am and how I feel now to when I didn’t know.”

“I’ve known I was ‘different’ since about the age of 5,” says Tiffany Parkin, a woman on her second year in transition.  “It wasn’t until my teen years that I began to understand ‘how’ I was different than my peers, but growing up in a conservative rural community and hearing how people like me were ‘freaks and deviants’.” Second Life became an important refuge for her. 

That refuge and other refuges like it are now endangered by the re-election of Donald Trump and JD Vance, who have made their utter hostility to LGBT people clear in countless ways, countless times. 

It’s easy to imagine how a Trump/Vance White House would impact LGBT people in metaverse platforms, not only in their offline lives, but on the platforms themselves:  

Trump has already suggested violent video games should be banned, and it’s easy to see that scapegoating expand to online worlds which enable virtual violence and sex. Especially as so much of the latter involves sex with LGBT people.

Relatedly, Trump's government blueprint Project 2025 includes a clause suggesting any content involving LGBT people should be deemed pornographic and censored. What do you suppose another Trump administration would make of LGBT-related sex (or even just communities as a whole) available in worlds like Second Life and VRChat?

There are other reasons avatars should support Kamala, including her support for expanding broadband, loans for small businesses (i.e. virtual content creators), and increased investment in chips and other new technology; but hopefully these two should be more than enough. Please consider sharing this post on your favorite Discord server, and above all (if you’re a US citizen), voting.

* Update, November 4: I should note that Lina Khan staying on during a Harris administration is possible, but definitely not certain. But a Trump appointment to replace her will surely be focused on enforcing Project 2025 policies, including censorship of LGBT-related content. 

Comments

[FactCheckinginRealTime]

I get it, everyone has opinions and thoughts about this election..however you cannot parade opinion as fact.

Trump has publicly disavowed Project 2025 numerous times..

See: https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/aug/20/how-accurate-are-warnings-by-democrats-kamala-harr/

And also a direct statement from the campaign itself:

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/news/e2fb9c91-b427-4d00-8243-0fc378e2ea85

If you allow this to be posted, I will be shocked but at least you'll read it. I hope.

[Cajsa]

Trump disavowing Project 2025 is like the cat sitting innocently next to a broken butter dish, licking the butter off his paws. Project 2025 was written by his people.

Another reason to support Harris is Trump's association with Elon Musk whose X has provided authoritarian government names and details of dissidents in those countries. The people he doxxed in Saudi Arabia were executed.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/04/twitter-saudi-arabia-human-rights-abuses

[Luther Weymann]

In the international business world of Fortune 500 C-Level executives, where the daily responsibility is enormous, the hours are long, the thinking must be crystal clear to make everything work, and the policies and business rules must be clear cut, neither Harris nor her Chinese Communist loving choice for VP, based upon their proven track record of incompetence, could possibly hold down one of those C-Level jobs. Yet sad fantasy-living liberals think she should have one of the most critical jobs in the world. Good luck, America. You’ve raised a generation of people who can code and make money but lack common sense.

[Noel Loordes]

@Luther Weymann - Okay, let's say you're right about Harris in that regard. But how in the world would Trump be a BETTER choice by that logic? His businesses do not exactly have a good track record, and it becomes increasingly clear that he is sliding off into actual dementia.

[Luther Weymann]

@ Noel Loordes - Let's say you have two bad choices. Dying of cancer untreated. Or dying of cancer after six months of chemo treatments, which nearly kills you and makes you nonstop sick. You have two bad choices. You usually pick the one you think has a more qualified history and chance of success. But sometimes, people choose to just die and keep going on with how they have been the past four years.

[Sammy]

Or here is an idea, stop telling people who to vote for. Lol. This is SL not the actual US. Most people use SL as an escape from this, they sure as hell don't want this in their face. I mean sure, people have a right to express their opinions. However, the problem is that instead of say staying away from a politically loaded topic and not telling people who to vote for.

[NP]

... And sometimes, people choose suicide by taking the Trump pill. Immagine the common sense of voting for a criminal, psychopath, anti-democracy lunatic encouraging insurrection, traitor of the West, ... Luther is essentially saying: "This soup isn't quite to my liking, so let's switch to this concoction of pureed garbage and shit with shards of glass. Why doesn't everyone share my impeccable taste? What a generation without common sense". Yeah, good luck USA.