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 live-stream (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.
Have a great day and a safe Super Tuesday and get out there and VOTE!
Zoha Islands / Fruit Islands