Virtual political violence strikes Second Life

 

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By Reuters

Posted on 18 May 2007 at 15:55

Bitter political disputes have spread to Second Life. Supporters of the Spanish socialist and conservative parties have been trying to burn down each others' party offices in the virtual world.

'They have thrown bombs, entered the building with sub-machine guns, lit fires, everything you could imagine,' an official from Spain's ruling Socialist Party, using the Second Life moniker Zeros Kuhm, told Reuters.

In the real world, hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters have flooded Spanish streets over the past year, accusing the government of capitulating to Basque separatist guerrillas ETA.

'We have complained to the Second Life commission about the terrorism,' a spokesman for the conservative opposition Popular Party said in Second Life.

Second Life is the popular online virtual world with millions of registered users and its own economy and currency.