US Congressional Hearing on Second Life

Yesterday there was a milestone in the visibility of virtual worlds within the political arena. The Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Internet held a hearing on Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium. Giving testimony were: Philip Rosedate of Linden, Susan Tenby of TechSoup, Larry Johnson of NMC, and Colin Parris of IBM.

It was a good discussion of issues, although the committee seems more interested in protecting teens and banning terrorism from SL. NOAA's SL efforts were mentioned. I highly recommend the viewing of the hearing.

See http://energycommerce... for the video archive (WMV 106MB). Also see the following articles from the Washington Post and CQ Politics respectively:
- http://blog.washingto...
- http://www.cqpolitics...

For press reaction to these hearings, see...
- http://www.thedailysh...

Hi Richard:

I do hope this new "WDC visibility" for VWs will indeed be good, and I
wish I had enough faith in our political representatives to expect good
things to come out of these hearings. But I must admit I am concerned
that they will instead focus on the negative issues in VWs, including
whether or not terrorists will take advantage of VWs. We certainly have
plenty of precedence where we have seen those working on protecting
homeland security and ending up keeping LOTS of smart students and
others from coming to the US and contributing to innovation and economic
growth.

It will be interesting to see how this goes and what the results will
be. I will hope for the best but I can't say I am very optimistic.

Eilif