Several advocacy organizations have written to giant tech company Meta, cautioning the tech company to terminate plans to allow minors into its virtual reality world (Metaverse).
These advocacy organizations via a signed letter by major safety groups, disclose that Meta must first assess the potential risks of allowing minors into its Metaverse, as they will likely face harassment and privacy violations in its virtual reality world.
Part of the letter reads, “Meta must wait for more peer-reviewed research on the potential risks of the Metaverse to be certain that children and teens would be safe. Should Meta throw open the doors of these worlds to minors rather than pause to protect them, you would yet again, demonstrate your company to be untrustworthy when it comes to safeguarding young people’s best interests”.
The letter also made reference to a March report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, that reported harassment of users who were under 18 on the app. Researchers within the center reported 19 episodes of abuse directed at minors by adults, during numerous visits to the most popular worlds within Horizon Universe, a metaverse implementation created by Meta, formally known as Facebook.
In response to the caution from advocacy organizations, Meta spokesperson Joe Osborne via a statement said that Meta does not intend to neglect its plans for minors in the virtual reality world but is making plans to adopt some extra measures to protect them from any violations.
In his words, “Before we make Horizon Worlds available to teens, we will have additional protections and tools in place to help provide age-appropriate experiences for them. Quest headsets are for people 13+ and we encourage parents and caretakers to use our parental supervision tools, including managing access to apps, to help ensure safe experiences.”
Investors King understands that experts are not too optimistic about how the Metaverse will affect children. Citing the negative effects of social media on individuals most especially Teenagers, such as depression, self-harm, and other mental health-related cases, experts note that the Metaverse might even be worse.
However, despite some of its shortcomings, the Metaverse has been hyped to present many advantages for kids, especially from an educational perspective. With the help of such remarkable technology, these kids will be able to grasp abstract concepts easily in a more engaging way. The Metaverse has also been poised to offer a hands-on experience that can be very beneficial for children and help them to better understand the world around them and how things work.
Meanwhile, safety experts feel minors should not be allowed into the Metaverse owing to the fact that the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. The latest pushback from online safety experts represents another headache for Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has poured billions into metaverse technology. The costly initiative has also drawn mockery and rankled investors and employees alike over the last year.
