Building a diverse metaverse but struggling with assault

Author Moonshot.news

Published on: 27/05/2022

Will there be a diverse and inclusive metaverse? Today, we connect with people on the internet mostly by just looking at screens. In the metaverse, we are expected to share the same spaces three-dimensionally. Companies are investing in it seeing commercial possibilities. But what about diversity and inclusion? The metaverse is not ready yet – but the abuse is already there.

“We have the opportunity to help build the metaverse with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) from its inception. It definitely isn’t easy to resolve the complicated issues of DEI in technology, especially at a global scale”, writes Maxine Williams, chief diversity officer at Meta in a blog post.

Corporate accountability group SumOfUs  reports that the avatar of a 21-year-old researcher working for the group was sexually assaulted in Meta’s virtual reality platform Horizon Worlds. The group told the BBC this shows Meta needs better plans to mitigate harms in the metaverse. Horizon Worlds is currently only available to users in the US and Canada. Avatars in the platform have a simplified appearance.

It’s easy to see a virtual assault as less dangerous than a physical one but builders of the metaverse stress that if you identify with your avatar, an assault can be very traumatic. “It still counts, it still has a real impact on users,” the group’s campaigns director Vicky Wyatt told the BBC.

The avatar of the researcher is in the same room as two male avatars in the room, one of whom is observing while the other appears very close to her. The male avatars make obscene comments and share a virtual bottle of drink.

Addressing diversity and inclusion in the metaverse, Williams stresses that “It’ll take years for the metaverse to be built, so we have a long road ahead.”

“To work toward an inclusive metaverse, we need to ask the right questions about what inclusivity must look like in immersive experiences’, she writes

“Diverse people shouldn’t just participate in the metaverse as consumers; they should be its architects and builders as well. To make that happen, we need to increase the diversity of people working in the tech industry, particularly in areas like artificial intelligence (AI), gaming, virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR).

“We’re partnering with institutions across the United States — historically Black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander–serving institutions — to attract more students to deep learning courses and increase diversity and equity in the field of AI.”

“It’s important to remember that an inclusive metaverse benefits everyone, including people from traditionally underrepresented groups.”