Virtual worlds, where users’ life like 3D avatars can express themselves in a fuller range of human speech and gestures, present an even greater content-moderation challenge than the hundreds of millions of written posts and images that flow through Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram every day.
Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, flagged potential regulatory risks from its metaverse strategy to investors in a securities filing. Meta has already spent $10bn building its augmented-reality division, seeking to create an avatar-filled virtual world.
According to the experts whose work underpins the forthcoming Online Safety Bill, the metaverse will be subjected to stringent UK regulation, making tech giants behind the virtual worlds open to billions of pounds of potential fines.
UK ministers, including Chris Philp and Nadine Dorries, have also previously warned that the new law would apply in the metaverse, whatever future form it took. Meta said that safety and privacy will be baked into its metaverse designs and that it had already committed $50mn into research in this area.
Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella has also painted his company’s $75bn purchase of video games company Activision as central to the future of online interaction as people spend more time in the metaverse.
In fact, Meta’s virtual reality boss, Andrew Bosworth, has admitted that virtual reality can often be a
“toxic environment” especially for women and minorities. He said that moderating user behaviour “at any meaningful scale is practically impossible”. Further complicating the path to the metaverse are Meta’s hopes of incorporating blockchain-based digital payments, which it has warned investors will also involve a high degree of legal uncertainty and technical risk.
