Meta moves to protect users from sexual assault in the metaverse

Boundary will be switched on by default and prevent any other avatars from coming closer than four feet away

Facebook parent Meta has introduced a minimum distance between users' avatars in its virtual reality Horizon network after reports of harassment. AFP

Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, has added a personal space boundary to its metaverse after reports emerged of sexual assaults in the virtual world.

The new feature will create a 1.2-metre barrier around the user’s avatar, “making it easier to avoid unwanted interactions”, according to a blog post by a company vice president.

The boundary, which has already been introduced across Meta’s Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues – two of the company’s flagship virtual reality metaverse products – will be switched on by default.

“We are intentionally rolling out Personal Boundary as always on, by default, because we think this will help to set behavioural norms – and that’s important for a relatively new medium like VR,” said Vivek Sharma of Horizon.

The move appears to address concerns that have arisen over user safety.

Nina Jane Patel, co-founder and vice-president of metaverse research company Kabuni Ventures, reported being sexually assaulted while beta-testing Meta’s virtual world.

“Sexual harassment is no joke on the regular internet, but being in VR adds another layer that makes the event more intense,” she wrote in a blog post detailing the incident in December. "A horrible experience that happened so fast and before I could even think about putting the safety barrier in place. I froze."

Meta said she had not switched on a safety feature that would have prevented the attack, in a response which was roundly criticised as victim-blaming.

In the same month, a Bloomberg columnist exploring the same metaverse described feeling uncomfortable after she was surrounded by male avatars who took pictures of her own avatar.

“While most people are generally well-behaved and enthusiastic about the new medium, there seem to be few measures in place to prevent bad behaviour beyond a few quick guidelines when you enter a space and features that let you block and mute problematic users,” she wrote.

“I didn’t feel unsafe, but I was uncomfortable, and there were no clear rules about etiquette and personal space.”

Reports of sexual harassment have dogged Meta’s metaverse and other similar products for several years.

Mark Zuckerberg’s company has been under scrutiny over its handling of problematic content and abuse on its existing social media platforms since long before its rebranding from Facebook.

Online sexual harassment is also widespread, with about four out of 10 Americans having experienced it first hand, according to a 2017 study by the Pew Research Centre.

Virtual reality – the technology that underpins industry-leading metaverse experiences like the ones offered by Meta – is designed to make online experiences of all kinds feel more engaging and realistic.

Katherine Cross, who is researching online harassment at the University of Washington, told MIT’s Technology Review that the same heightened realism would apply to experiences of sexual assault.

“At the end of the day, the nature of virtual-reality spaces is such that it is designed to trick the user into thinking they are physically in a certain space, that their every bodily action is occurring in a 3D environment,” she said. “It’s part of the reason why emotional reactions can be stronger in that space, and why VR triggers the same internal nervous system and psychological responses.”