Barely days after Meta opened up its VR social media platform 'Horizon Worlds' to the public, women are already alleging sexual harassment and crude behavior from fellow users. Meta opened up access to Horizon Worlds earlier this month, enabling regular users and VR enthusiasts to hop on the bandwagon that many believe will be the next big platform in tech after social media. However, reports of toxic behavior are already raising their ugly head in the metaverse.
Sexual harassment, racial slurs, and homophobic comments have always been a major problem in console gaming, and it is only expected to get worse with the advent of the metaverse. While Horizon Worlds does have a 'Safe Zone' that users can activate if they feel their avatar is being physically threatened, it still doesn't solve the problem of toxic users. Experts are already warning that the metaverse could destroy lives, and the level of toxicity on the platform suggests that those comments might not be an exaggeration.
On December 1, Meta revealed that a woman last month reported being groped by a stranger on Horizon Worlds. The incident came to light after she reported her ordeal in the Horizon Worlds beta testing group on Facebook. The company says that safety remains a priority on the metaverse, where people typically interact with hordes of strangers everyday. Talking to The Verge about the incident, Vivek Sharma, Meta’s VP of Horizon, said that the woman should have used the 'Safe Zone' feature when she felt threatened. Calling the incident "absolutely unfortunate," Sharma said that this case would help the company further fine-tune its blocking feature to make it "trivially easy and findable."
Toxicity In The Virtual World
Sexual harassment in VR has a history as long as the technology itself. As pointed out by this report in the MIT Technology Review, users as far back as in 2016 reported being sexually assaulted in front of their family and friends in a VR game called Quivr, where players shoot zombies with bows and arrows. Plenty of other reports have catalogued people facing harassment from fellow gamers and users in VR, including this CNET article that details the ordeal of one Sydney Smith who had to deal with lewd, sexist remarks while playing Echo VR on the Oculus Quest 2 last July. Experts have also warned that the metaverse will make body image issues worse, especially among young girls.
With sexual harassment on the rise in the virtual world, lawyers are trying to cash in on the problem and are opening virtual offices in the metaverse to offer their services to aggrieved users. According to Fortune, New Jersey-based personal injury practice Grungo Colarulo has already opened an office in the metaverse, helping people deal with cases of sexual harassment on the platform. The firm also deals with other types of issues in the metaverse, including personal injury, nursing home abuse and neglect, employment discrimination, workers’ compensation, and more. While it will be interesting to see whether law practices will become a thing in the metaverse, it will need more than virtual lawyers to end the scourge of sexual harassment and toxic behavior in the digital world.
Source: The Verge, MIT Technology Review, CNet, Fortune