Some apps in the virtual reality metaverse are dangerous to minors . A few weeks ago, a researcher posing as a 13-year-old girl witnessed harassment, sexual violence, racist slurs, and a rape threat in the Metaverse.
The application establishes the minimum age for a user to enter the platform at 13 years, so this British researcher created a profile pretending to be that age and visited virtual reality rooms where the avatars simulated sex. She was shown sex toys and condoms, and numerous adult men approached her and made explicit comments.
explicit sexual harassment
The metaverse is the name given to the games and experiences accessed by people wearing virtual reality headsets. The technology, previously limited to games, could be adapted for use in many other areas, from work to entertainment, but also concerts, series and movies.
Mark Zuckerberg thinks it could be the future of the Internet; so much so that just a few months ago it changed the name of Facebook to Meta, and the company invested billions in the development of its Oculus Quest headset, with which users can enter the metaverse and live their visual and auditory experience within of the.
Those headsets, now rebranded as the Meta Quest, are believed to hold up to 75% of the market share. It was one of these headphones that the researcher used to explore the app and part of the metaverse. The application, called VRChat, is an online virtual platform that users can enter after creating a personalized 3D avatar.
Although it is not created and developed by Facebook, it can be downloaded from an appstore on the Facebook Meta Quest headset, without any type of age verification control, and with the only requirement of having a Facebook (or Meta) account. . Within VRChat, there are rooms where users can meet: some are innocent and everyday, like a McDonald’s restaurant, for example, but there are also strip clubs and pole dances.
In the virtual world, children mingle freely with adults. One man told the researcher that avatars can “undress and do unspeakable things.” Others spoke of “erotic role-playing”. Following an investigation by the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children), the agency said improvements in online safety are a matter of urgency.
“These are children exposed to completely inappropriate experiences, really incredibly harmful”, declared from the NSPCC, who believe that technology companies have learned little from the mistakes made with the first generation of social networks, and argue that the metaverse is a product that it is dangerous by design, due to oversight and neglect. “We are seeing products released without any suggestion that the safety of minors has been considered.”
