Communications of the ACM
My Nightmare Trip into the Metaverse
Within the first 10 minutes of putting on a VR headset and entering a chat room, I experienced sexual harassment, racism, and rape jokes.
Credit: The Guardian
When reporter Yinka Bokinni made her first visit to the metaverse, she was yelled at, berated and at one point, surrounded by seven users who tried to force her to remove her safety shield and assault her. "I tried to run away, but they backed me up against a wall, trying to grab at me, making sexual comments," she writes. "It was the virtual equivalent of sexual assault."
While some metaverse apps may be better at moderating content than the ones Bokinni tried, the reporter asserts that legal changes are still necessary. "I don't think it's too much to ask that when I go into the metaverse, I'm not racially abused. I don’t think it's too much to ask that you do something about the fact that your product is covered in one-star reviews on the app store, saying it's a paradise for paedophiles.
"And I don't think it's too much to ask [that it's] made safe enough [so] that people like me don't have to make documentaries about how dangerous your products are."
From The Guardian
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