Meta, the company before known as Facebook, has had to face its first case of virtual sexual harassment.
It is an aggression that has taken place in the virtual world of Horizon Worlds, open to the great public at the beginning of December (at the moment only in the USA. And Canada) but that until hour was available in Beta phase for a
Small community of lovers of virtual reality.
Horizon WorldS is a kind of chat room in which the participants have a caricature look.
They can give any physical appearance to your avatar, although it will always be shown as a floating torso, no legs.
They can also mold the scenario at will.
It is designed so that up to 20 people interact simultaneously and collaborate in the creation of the world around them.
They can convert it into a playground or just decorate it to your liking while chatting between them.
Access is free, but it requires using one of the Virtual Reality helmets of Oculus, goal owned.
On November 26, one of the users of this beta version published a message explaining that his avatar had been touched unlikely and with sexual intention for another avatar.
In an interview with the publication The Verge, Vivek Sharma, head of Horizon Worlds in Meta, called the incident as “really unfortunate,” and recalled that players have a tool, called “safe space”, which prevents other avatars to get too close
.
Goal, in addition, has included a button to report undue behaviors that sends a small video clip from the perspective of those involved in a company’s supervisor to consider whether any of the standards of the platform, which expressly prohibit this type
of abuse
But the incident threatens to embitter the takeoff of the metaverse, the idea that aimed at the fact that in a future part of social interactions they take place in completely virtual worlds.
Last October Mark Zuckerberg dedicated a one-hour conference to explain this vision, in which virtual environments such as Horizon Worlds will have enormous importance.
