Reuters has this delightful piece today about what apparently is a major role that Second Life is playing in French politics. The virtual world is a prime venue for supporters of presidential frontrunners UMP Conservative party candidate Nicolas Sarkozy, Socialist Segolene Royal and centrist Francois Bayrou, and National Front leader Jean Marie Le Pen.
Sarkozy’s official campaign site gets an astonishing 15,000 visits a day from Second Life avatars, and “violent” protests have even erupted among the 3-D French political supporters on the site (a fight between far-right and left-wing supporters featured exploding virtual pigs). As was true of the virtual office of Democratic presidential contender John Edwards in the U.S., vandalism has hit the French parties’ virtual locations on Second Life.
Whatever chaos may ensue in the French political virtual world, the avatars are true to their national love of wine. I’m not sure if virtual drinking occurs much in non-French sites, but it certainly does in Second Life France.
“Before, it was worse. They were doing this kind of thing everywhere, trying to create as much chaos as possible,” said a virtual National Front supporter called French Food, who blamed the cyberattack on socialists.
He surveyed the slight damage, then returned to sip a virtual glass of champagne.
Le Pen’s site — which looks like an exhibition space with French tricolore flags and a poster of him and his daughter Marine — often houses supporters in buoyant mood predicting he will do well as they drink copious amounts of virtual alcohol.
Cynthia Brumfield at 9:11 AM|Comments(0)
Blogs We Read
