That was fast. It was not even a week ago that the Facebook parent company Meta opened its new platform for virtual reality (VR) to a larger audience with Horizon Worlds. Now there are the first reports of harassment and assaults against women that are said to have taken place in the virtual world. It will not be the last and it suggests the challenges that the operators of such virtual worlds will face.
As the technology magazine The Verge reports , a beta tester from Horizon Worlds is said to have shared her experience in the official Facebook group at the beginning of December. An anonymous user is said to have approached their avatar and groped them virtually. Other people present apparently supported his behavior. Meta has now confirmed the incident, the manager responsible for the VR platform Vivek Sharma considers it "absolutely regrettable".Bloomberg journalist Parmy Olson had similar experiences. Shortly after starting Horizon Worlds and entering the so-called plaza - the lobby where all users begin - several male avatars came up to her, whispered in her ear and took photos of her avatar, which they then took pressed into the virtual hand. "The experience was uncomfortable and I felt a bit like the object of an experiment," writes Olson.
Virtual reality is more tangible - and more approachable
Virtual realities such as Horizon Worlds are not new, technically, if we think of video games or the now ancient 17 years Second Life thinks . But they have become increasingly relevant in recent months. Under the umbrella term metaverse , the technology industry is currently developing numerous applications of virtual worlds in which one can not only play, but also work and shop. After years as a niche phenomenon, virtual reality could make the breakthrough. That the Facebook group recently renamed itself Meta, was the biggest signal so far that this should not be a short-term trend. For Meta and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, the metaverse is supposed to become "a kind of embodied Internet".
Horizon Worlds is intended to be the first step towards luring existing Facebook users into this new Internet. The social VR platform has been open to people from the US and Canada since the beginning of December. Further requirements: a Facebook account, the appropriate software and VR glasses such as the Oculus Quest 2 developed by Facebook itself, for which just under 450 euros are currently due. Whoever has all of this can enter the virtual world. 20 people at a time can currently communicate there at the same time. From the plaza you can go to different rooms and applications, which are gradually being expanded, not only by Meta, but also by third parties.
Within the world you appear as an avatar that you can create as you wish. In the case of Horizon Worlds, these are cut off at the belly; therefore you only see animated faces and hand movements, which you can control via the two controllers connected to the VR glasses. The combination of VR glasses, with which you literally have the world around you, the voice chat and the lifelike hand gestures make the experience more tangible, one would like to say: more real.Spy Software
This is exactly what makes virtual assaults and attacks so problematic. Because even if the grabbing takes place digitally in the form of an avatar, the experience doesn't have to be any less bad for those affected. Various studies show that experiences in virtual reality trigger strong emotional reactions and VR avatars can act like an extension of your own body ( Frontiers in Psychology: Gall et al., 2021 ).
In the TIME freelance journalist Eva Wolf Angel wrote already in 2016 about their experiences in AltspaceVR, a virtual reality that is now operated by Microsoft. They are similar to what happened to Parmy Olson in Horizon Worlds: men who approach female avatars without being asked, whisper in their ears and make offensive hand movements. An internal study by Facebook's subsidiary Oculus came to the result in 2019 that a fifth of the respondents had already had an "unpleasant experience" within virtual reality.
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It has therefore been clear for years that it will be a great challenge for the virtual worlds to become a so-called safe space in which everyone feels comfortable and in which they can find support if necessary: not only men or women, but also trans People and marginalized groups. But have the platforms learned from this and are they prepared for attacks in a possible metaverse?
In the case of the beta tester, Meta-Manager Vivek Sharma says that she failed to activate the security zone around her . With the function, it is possible at the push of a button to create a bubble around your own avatar, in which other users can no longer interact. "We want everyone in Horizon Worlds to have a positive experience with easy-to-find security tools - and it's never the user's fault if he or she doesn't use all of the features we offer," Meta spokeswoman Kristina Milian told Technology Review . In the future, they want to ensure that the function is even easier to find.
In addition to the safety zone, Horizon Worlds always contains references to the netiquette and special guides that lead new users through the world at the beginning, says Milian. These are experienced users who have been selected by Facebook to help newbies. And last but not least, all interactions are saved locally on the VR glasses for a limited time. If an attack is reported, the recording is transferred to the moderation team, which then reviews the case and intervenes if necessary.
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This is reminiscent of the existing practice on Facebook: users have to report problematic content, then it is checked. In addition, there are algorithms that scan posts for potentially criminal content and automatically delete them. But what already works badly than right in the social network is likely to bring with it completely different challenges in the virtual world. After all, the intended metaverse consists less of text and images, but rather of spoken language, gestures and movements. Even the way one or more avatars approach another can seem threatening. As in the analog world.
Horizon Worlds is said to be "as safe as Disney"
Against this background, technical solutions in the form of algorithms and pattern recognition are too short-sighted to prevent attacks from occurring in the best of cases. The introduction of "watchers", so to speak human moderators, who are always close by and can intervene at any time, is likely to be irritating for many people, as one could feel constantly being watched. Apart from the fact that a permanent presence is sooner or later hardly feasible, applications like Horizon Worlds should unite not just a few thousand, but millions of users.
The ultimate solution to how to deal with digital grabbers doesn't exist yet - and it may never be. At least that's what Meta's CTO-designate Andrew Bosworth suspects. In an internal memo in November, Bosworth wrote to employees that it was an "existential threat" to the entire company if users did not feel safe. That's why the company's virtual worlds should be "as safe as Disney". At the same time, however, he admitted that it was practically impossible to monitor user behavior to a meaningful extent.
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As Bosworth wrote, one also has to orientate oneself to the existing guidelines of Facebook when it comes to VR applications, but it may be more difficult to take action there. For example in the form of clear warnings, temporary bans or even the complete removal from all meta and Facebook products. In his opinion, especially in the initial phase, this could lead to "steering the culture in the right direction" so that these strong measures would not have to be used that often later.
Incidentally, it is unknown whether and what consequences there were for the digital grabber who is said to have harassed the beta tester mentioned at the beginning. One does not want to talk about individual cases, says spokeswoman Kristina Milian.
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