What happens if your avatar is groped online? Or your virtual items are stolen? Or the 3D photoreal representation of you is bullied? These are not abstract or niche but growing issues with real-world consequences. If the metaverse is to become the open, democratic simulacra fresh start for connected society that some envisage then how it is policed needs as much attention as the technical standards for building it.
Virtual groping is real. In 2016, on blogging platform Medium, Jordan Belamire reported a sexual assault while playing VR game QuiVr. Her avatar was molested by other players making “rubbing, grabbing, and pinching gestures” forcing her to quit.
READ MORE: My First Virtual Reality Groping (Medium)
Researchers at Melbourne University’s Computing and Information Systems studied the response and found a clear lack of consensus around harmful behavior in virtual spaces. Yet the laws of the real world are not well-placed to solve the wrongs that occur in digital environments.
READ MORE: From ‘Silly’ to ‘Scumbag’: Reddit Discussion of a Case of Groping in a Virtual Reality Game (DiGRA)
That’s why researchers and designers of virtual worlds are turning to technology-based tools to proactively manage VR communities.
“Multiplayer digital gaming — which has a long history of managing large and sometimes toxic communities — offers a wealth of ideas that are key to understanding what it means to cultivate responsible and thriving VR spaces,” outlines Melbourne University PhD researcher Lucy Sparrow at Wired. “By showing us how we can harness the power of virtual communities and implement inclusive design practices, multiplayer games help pave the way for a better future in VR.”
However, Sparrow’s own research on ethics and multiplayer games, “Apathetic Villagers and the Trolls Who Love Them: Proceedings of the 31st Australian Conference on Human-Computer-Interaction,” revealed that players can be resistant to “outside interference” in virtual affairs. And there are practical problems, too: In fluid, globalized online communities, it’s difficult to know how to adequately identify suspects and determine jurisdiction.
As it stands, one of the most common forms of governance in virtual worlds is a “reactive and punitive” form of moderation based on reporting users who may then be warned, suspended, or banned. Given the sheer size of virtual communities, these processes are often automated: for instance, an AI might process reports and implement the removal of users or content, or removals may occur after a certain number of reports against a particular user are received.
“Multiplayer digital gaming — which has a long history of managing large and sometimes toxic communities — offers a wealth of ideas that are key to understanding what it means to cultivate responsible and thriving VR spaces. By showing us how we can harness the power of virtual communities and implement inclusive design practices, multiplayer games help pave the way for a better future in VR.”
— Lucy Sparrow, Melbourne University
“Because they are reactive, they do little to prevent problematic behaviors or support and empower marginalized users,” Sparrow suggests. “Automation is helpful in managing huge amounts of users and material, but it also leads to false positives and negatives, all while raising further concerns surrounding bias, privacy, and surveillance.”
READ MORE: How to Govern the Metaverse (Wired)
As an alternative, some multiplayer games have experimented with democratic self-governance. Riot Games implemented a short-lived Tribunal system that allowed players to review reports against other players and vote on their punishments in the multiplayer game League of Legends. A similar system is in play in Valve’s CS:GO and Dota 2.
Forms of self-governance in VR are also on Facebook’s radar: A 2019 paper, “Harassment in Social Virtual Reality: Challenges for Platform Governance,” suggests that the company is interested in promoting community-driven moderation initiatives across individual VR applications as a “potential remedy” to the challenges of top-down governance.
“These kinds of systems are valuable because they allow virtual citizens to play a role in the governance of their own societies,” Sparrow writes. “However, co-opting members of the community to do difficult, time-consuming, and emotionally laborious moderation work for free is not exactly an ethical business model. And if — or when — toxic hate groups flourish, it is difficult to pinpoint who should be responsible for dealing with them.”
NAVIGATING THE METAVERSE:
The metaverse may be a wild frontier, but here at NAB Amplify we’ve got you covered! Hand-selected from our archives, here are some of the essential insights you’ll need to expand your knowledge base and confidently explore the new horizons ahead:
- What Is the Metaverse and Why Should You Care?
- Avatar to Web3: An A-Z Compendium of the Metaverse
- The Metaverse is Coming To Get You. Is That a Bad Thing?
- Don’t Expect the Metaverse to Happen Overnight
- A Framework for the Metaverse from Hardware to Hollywood and Everything in Between
One way of addressing these obstacles is to hire community managers, or CMs. “Commonly employed by gaming and social VR companies to manage virtual communities, CMs are visible people who can help facilitate more proactive and democratic decision-making processes while keeping both users and developers of VR accountable.”
CMs can remind players of codes of conduct and can sometimes warn, suspend, or ban users; they can also bring player concerns back to the development team. CMs may have a place in the metaverse too, but only if we figure out how to treat them properly.
READ MORE: Harassment in Social Virtual Reality: Challenges for Platform Governance (ACM Digital Library)
As Facebook (itself no paragon of virtue) leads the drive to move our work and social interactions into VR, the importance of dealing with harmful behaviors online is being drawn sharply into focus.
It connects with a wider issue concerned with the privacy and security of our data as more of our digital selves is ported to the metaverse.
Spending 20 minutes in a VR simulation leaves just under two million unique recordings of body language,” points out digital marketing agency Media.Monks. “This directly leads to concern for privacy using XR technology or indeed data privacy across the metaverse.”
It adds, “Pervasive illegality using emerging technologies will post challenges in how they are regulated around the world. Platforms already wield great power in dictating who can use their platforms and to what end. Who will be the police force of the metaverse?”
Who polices the police?
READ MORE: The Metaverse Demystified (Media.Monks)