As the hottest track in the current digital economy, "meta-universe" attracts a large number of users and capital influx with its highly realistic and deeply immersive new Internet experience, integrates various cutting-edge digital technologies and applications, and continues to evolve toward a complex digital ecosystem that is parallel and independent of the real world. With the trend of intelligent data, the integration of virtual world and real world continues to accelerate, and the meta-universe may become the underlying structure supporting the digital society in the future.
However, as people's reliance on the metasverse grows, so does the exposure to this vast digital ecosystem, which is beyond the reach of traditional approaches to governance and regulation. In view of this, while eagerly looking forward to the vast future of the meta-universe, people should also think comprehensively, timely insight into the dark side of the meta-universe, and do a forward-looking governance.
At The end of April, The American enterprise institute released its senior researcher, is also The university of Florida's warrington school of utilities, director of The center Mark Jamison (Mark Jamison) an article written by professor "yuan on The Dark Side of The universe" (The Dark Side of The Metaverse). This paper extracts the typical dark side problems in the current metasomes and their differences from the malpractices of the Internet in the Web2.0 era.
According to Mark Jamison, the metasemes will revolutionize the way humans interact, socialize, learn, entertain, and interact deeply with reality. People can do almost anything in the meta-universe, and some of it will be outside the rules of behavior and social norms of the physical world. Like any emerging technology that opens up new Windows of opportunity, it also opens the door to the darkness in human nature, which typically includes the following four aspects:
Antisocial behavior
Common anti-social behaviors in the metasverse include personal attacks, bullying, harassment and hatred, extreme speech, etc. For example, researchers at Meta found that VRChat, currently the most used social platform in the metasverse, was detected by automated censorship systems every seven minutes for abusive, racist and other content. Compared with the social media platforms of Web2.0, users are in a state of full physical and mental immersion in the meta-universe, and the network system and applications have greatly enhanced their physical and mental control ability, which may even be used to confuse and fabricate facts and memory, thus realizing the manipulation of thoughts and behaviors and forming greater potential harm.
Pornographic content
The metasverse is also full of raunchy pornography and activities. According to a BBC investigation, Roblox and VRChat, the two main metasurverse platforms, both allow anyone over the age of 13 to enter their virtual strip clubs and offer erotic items. The digital avatar of a 13-year-old girl fake by BBC investigators was also harassed by adult male avatars. While this kind of behavior in virtual space does not pose real harm, the immersive experience of the metasomes can cause worse psychological harm and behavior misdirection than that of ordinary social platforms.
Online gambling
In another popular in virtual reality platform Decentraland, ICE poker virtual casinos and gambling USES should make up a third of its daily traffic, but it also allows underage users over the age of 13. More worryingly, since most gamblers use tokens rather than real money, existing laws fail to regulate this. The existence of a similar regulatory grey area makes it easier for metaverse platforms to attract more underage gambling addicts.
Data security
Characterized by social networks and independent user generated content of Web 2.0 to collect more data type is mainly personal information, social connections, financial status and activities involved in and so on, but the yuan can collect and use of the data type of the universe is much more extensive and complex. The metasomes are directly connected to the human body, which means that any risks people encounter in virtual space are hard to protect against. VR headsets and other wearable yuan universe access devices can be easily collected from individual users of the iris and pupil, fingerprints, voice print, posture, gait and other biometric data, then analyze the user behavior mode, health, consumer preferences and other information, to carry out directional business promotion or routine monitoring. Unlike the mobile Internet, which has a spacer medium, the metasexes tend to achieve full sensory deep immersion, which inevitably means all-dimensional data delivery, resulting in greater and less controllable risks of potential mental manipulation.
The yuan to the formation of the dark side of the universe based on three main reason. Firstly, online activities in the metasverse tend to reduce people's self-control. Second, although many applications have mechanisms to monitor and report inappropriate content, large-scale automatic content auditing across the web is currently difficult to achieve. Third, the current age verification measures set by various meta-cosmic platforms are weak and easily circumvented. Given that there is no "short, smooth or quick" solution for these three reasons, it is suggested that the regulatory authorities should try to make efforts in the following four governance directions:
Strengthen competition among metasurverse platforms
Part of the reason users choose to use a particular metasurverse platform is because they identify with its content and services. With multiple metasurses to choose from, users compare metasurses by experience, online rating, and market value using cryptocurrencies, digital lands, and non-homogeneous tokens (NFT). In order to strive for more users, the platform will inevitably need to constantly improve the service mode and the user experience. Strengthening competition among platforms will help reduce users' data security risks in the long run and improve the code of conduct and governance rules in virtual Spaces.
Increased competition among metasurverse hardware manufacturers
Virtual reality (VR) related equipment manufacturers sufficient competition between the same RMB will be beneficial to solve the information security problems of the universe. Much of the current concern about the metasverse stems from Meta's history of data privacy and security issues, as well as the fact that Oculus VR requires anyone to have a Facebook account. However, hardware companies such as HTC, HP and Valve are developing headsets that limit the collection of meta-cosmic information. Increased competition in the hardware market will drive a greater variety of VR devices, with improved security features and more user choice, which will reduce the darkness of the metaverse to some extent.
Give full play to the governance role of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs)
Some metauniverse platforms, such as Decentraland, operate as distributed autonomous organizations (DAOs) based on blockchain. With blockchain technology, the metasexes could run public affairs without the need for a real-world "government." Between people with the aid of block chain technology cannot be tampered with, the traceability features such as all the way, can build trust technology, reduce the dependence on centralized organization provided institutional trust, and then in a new way to maintain relationships and community autonomy order of opening and equalization, at the same time using tokens, NFT economic rights to establish reward measures, such as to resolve the yuan exists in the universe, But there are governance and regulatory issues that cannot be covered by real-world regulation and governance rules.
Carry out targeted government intervention
There are specific areas of the metasverse where traditional government can still intervene, as Bumble, the dating app company, successfully persuaded the Texas legislature to make it a criminal offense for users to send unsolicited lewd photos. However, there are some problems with traditional government intervention to solve the dark side of the metasomes, such as common jurisdictional disputes. Given the widespread cross-border interaction in the metasomes, can a user in Texas still violate state law when he or she sends obscene material to a contact in Argentina?
In addition, legislators' lack of understanding of the emerging technological ecology also makes it difficult for traditional law to keep pace with the rapid development of the metasomes. , in contrast, the government guide the development of a yuan universe universally applicable industry standards, the implementation of autonomy based on block chain industry, and offer enterprise yuan universe is full of elasticity and trial and error space, it is more likely to cultivate systemic consensus in the process of governance, regulation and optimization scheme, in order to avoid brutal development first, then a strong governance caused by all sorts of malpractices.
With the continuous development of the meta-universe, a new world of digital intelligence is being constructed, which integrates virtual cyberspace, data intelligence and the real world. Now is exactly the right time to learn the lessons of Web2.0's lagging regulation of digital platforms and start the governance of the meta-universe. Prevention of the dark side of the meta-universe and its potential risks should be a priority, not a priority. In order to support the potential and tension of the overall technological change in the future, it is necessary to promote fairness, justice, control and credibility in the virtual space, strengthen the responsibility of the platform, and gradually build a diversified collaborative governance framework that integrates technology, social norms, law and market.