Italian lawmakers who gathered yesterday for a discussion of data transparency in political decision making got more than they bargained for when someone started playing a CGI video of Final Fantasy VII’s Tifa Lockhart having sex in the middle of the digital proceedings. The hentai went live just as the Zoom call was introducing Giorgio Parisi, one of last year’s Nobel Prize winners in physics. What ensued was the longest 30 seconds anyone present had ever experienced.
The meeting, hosted by Five Star Movement Senator, Maria Laura Mantovani, appeared to be running smoothly for the first half hour, Italian wire service ANSA reported. But when it came time to introduce Parisi, the call, which included both live and remote participants, was hijacked by someone sharing their screen while playing the unofficial FFVII porn.
While it’s been edited out of the official VOD for the event, a clip of the harrowing Zoom fail remains and has been circulating online in the following thread:
At first Mantovani keeps speaking, apparently unaware of what’s going on. Then a man shouts something in Italian about a “sex offender.” Mantovani sighs loudly, and works with her assistant to try and kill the shared feed which ends up taking forever. Somehow it takes even longer to kill the audio feed. Finally, Mantovani gets the Zoom call back on track and Parisi begins giving his prepared remarks like what’s sure to be one of the weirdest moments in all of 2022 didn’t just happen.
In addition to Facebook, the FFVII porn was also apparently broadcast live via Senato TV, Italy’s equivalent of C-SPAN. Some present reportedly blamed hackers for the sabotage, though it’s unclear just yet what exactly transpired and who the perpetrators were. I skimmed the nearly three-hour meeting and there were a lot of people on the call sharing their screens from all over the place.
Western civilization isn’t doomed, it’s already in ruins. When not even the country that founded the Roman Senate can keep out hentai, what hope have the rest of us?