Metaverse Harassment Doesn’t Bode Well for Zuck’s Dreams
Yes, it’s still early days for the immersive virtual world. But that’s precisely the problem.
A vision.
Source: Bloomberg
When Mark Zuckerberg described the metaverse last year, he conjured an image of harmonious social connections in an immersive virtual world. But his company’s first iterations of the space have not been very harmonious.
Several women have reported incidents of harassment, including a beta tester who was virtually groped by a stranger and another who was virtually gang-raped within 60 seconds of entering Facebook’s Horizon Venues social platform. I had several uncomfortable moments with male strangers on social apps run by both Meta Platforms Inc. (formerly known as Facebook Inc.) and Microsoft Corp. when I visited them in December.