Video games are one again being portrayed as the root of society's problems. As predicted, members of both the House and the Senate are scrambling to figure out how to better protect us. This should surprise no one. Games aren't alone of course, with a the pitchfork and torch wielding mob of Attorney's General currently storming the gates at MySpace and Facebook. Games and social networking services could argue the facts all day long but do we really want to deal with reality and its well known liberal bias? Is there be a better way to handle the problem? There is, we just need to learn from eBay.
Read on for more.
EBay, when you think about it, is in a remarkably tenuous position. Any number of state or federal laws could impinge on the ease with which goods are currently bought and sold. So, eBay is very careful to monitor legislation that might impact it and employs many lobbyists. However, in addition to paying numerous lobbyists 6-figure retainers, eBay also messages it 169 million members directly, as described by the New York Times. It's a great idea since eBay users pretty much define grass roots. Much like my comments about rule making from several years ago, this is a real opportunity to drive the system.
Games have millions of users, Facebook nearly 10 million, MySpace is rapidly approaching 100 million. Why should these communities just stand around waiting for harmful laws to pass? Why not take a page from eBay and leverage these numbers? Look at what the extremely conservative Parents Television Council is able to do. A tiny number of committed letter writers have generated millions of dollars worth of fines. A vanishing small minority has made it harder for mainstream viewers to see what they want. Why should that power only be used by the fringe of the religious right and ideologues?
MMORPG players are already used to grinding, so why not have the "Write to Senator Clinton and tell her you won't vote for her if she doesn't spend the time to learn about video games"-quest? Or tools built into MySpace to write your Representatives and Senators? Facebook in particular, with millions of educated college students, should be able to mobilize the kind of lobby that should terrify both local and national politcos.
After all, who do you think runs the government? It isn't the members themselves, but the army of dedicated, young graduates scurrying around the House and Senate office buildings. The same type of people who have Facebook and MySpace accounts.
And who play videogames.
It's time for the people who actually use these places, the communities that flourish because of these technologies, to pwn Washington.
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