June 13, 2007
Despite all of the recent hype, it's unclear whether a Second Life presence really helps a political campaign.But a Japanese candidate may actually find himself in hot water over participating in the popular online game.
As reported by Next Gen, Kan Suzuki, a member of the Japanese Parliament, recently became the first politician from his country to set up a virtual office in Second Life.
Suzuki's foray into the the metaverse, however, may violate Japanese election laws, which hold that websites cannot be created or updated during the campaign period.
No official ruling has yet been made.
Comments
Is anyone capable of explaining WTF, I mean dear GOD WTF?!
Canadian law says the same too, although our rules were set up to prevent election results from being reported 5 time zones over, since the last polls will be open for 5 more hours when the first ones are closing and reporting their results.
I think the Supreme Court overturned that, but only for "unenforcability" rather than because it was unconstitutional.
I could be wrong, but if there are a lot of laws like this in Japan, then it's little wonder that one political party(Liberal Democratic) has dominated Japan's government for almost half a century.
From the BBC:
Japan's Public Office Election law, which was drawn up more than 50 years ago, limits the distribution of text and images for use in election campaigns to postcards and pamphlets.
Officials have recently ruled that web pages cannot be created or updated during the official period of campaigning for elections.
It is not yet clear how that will affect Mr Suzuki's plans to use his virtual office to help him win re-election. Mostly since it would be unclear whether a website and an office in SL are the same concept. If challenged, it might actually end up freeing websites from the restriction...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6739857.stm