The South American country’s lawmakers held a two-hour hearing using Horizon Workrooms, a Meta platform that allows teams to collaborate via a virtual workspace.
Colombian lawyers wore virtual reality headsets to participate, and the meeting was live-streamed on YouTube. Participants in the meeting appeared as computer-generated avatars.
According to those in the virtual meeting, the hearing, which saw a complainant attempt to sue the police, was a success. “The use of information technology in the development of judicial proceedings serves the essential purpose of facilitating and expediting these processes [of executing justice],” said Magdalena court magistrate Mara Victoria Quiones Triana.
Though not everyone who watched the streaming thought it was a good idea: some thought seeing cartoon-like figures was ridiculous. “I feel it takes away from the seriousness [of the case],” one viewer commented. “Is it okay if I imagine myself as a dinosaur? ”
It was the first time Colombian lawmakers held a full virtual hearing—but hearings using Meta’s technology have occurred elsewhere: local media reported that a Chinese court held a virtual meeting last September.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, virtual court hearings—and meetings in general—became the norm.
With governments imposing lockdowns all over the world, professionals turned to the video conferencing Zoom platform to meet, boosting the company’s stock and sending its market cap skyrocketing.
The sudden reliance on technology resulted in some strange and bizarre situations: a Texas lawyer who appeared unfamiliar with the platform became stuck as a kitten when he couldn’t change a video filter.
A meeting with everyone dressed as cartoonish digital characters, on the other hand, is a different story.
Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has poured billions of dollars into metaverse technology, but it has yet to be a financial success: its metaverse Reality Labs lost $4.28 billion in 2022 Q4.
Despite this, Meta CEO Zuckerberg has promised additional investments in the space. “AI today, and the metaverse in the long term, are the two major technological waves driving our roadmap,” he said last month.
