A landmark this week – as Colombia became one of the first countries to hold a court hearing in the metaverse. Attendees appeared as cartoon avatars, and the session was live-streamed on YouTube. So was it any good? Planet Crypto’s metaverse correspondent, Tex Upport, watched on…
“This was an incredibly exciting first in the metaverse and I have to tell you, the courtroom was absolutely bouncing. Admittedly, that was because there was a problem with my graphics card and I had to switch computers, but still, it was very exciting.
So, the main players in this courtroom drama were a police informant who appeared as a cartoon pig – the squealing sound effects as he dished the dirt were a nice touch; the judge appeared as an owl, which did lend his pronouncements a certain wisdom; and the main defendant, a serial offender, appeared as a caged canary, aka a jail bird. It really helped to paint of picture of who was who.
The hearing was powered by Meta (formerly Facebook, of course) whose metaverse avatars famously don’t have legs yet because they are currently too difficult to animate. This caused a bit of confusion because the Mafia nickname of one of the defendants is “Legs”, but his avatar didn’t have any. Also, the hearing lost some of its drama when every time a lawyer shouted “Objection!”, they couldn’t stand up.
I would say that the experience was a mixed success. Virtual attendance meant that anyone in the world could tune in to witness justice. On the downside, there were problems with internet connection, so when one of the defendants pleaded ‘not guilty’, all we heard was ‘guilty’ and he is now serving 10 years. Though as Colombian law hasn’t yet caught up with web 3.0, luckily it will only be avatars that are guilty, while the real crooks will remain free to carjack again.
Next week, I’ll be reporting from the first life-saving operation conducted in the metaverse. Well hopefully, I’ll be reporting from it. I’m the patient and to be honest, I can foresee problems.”
