The Metaverse needs to keep an eye on privacy to avoid Meta’s mistakes
Metaverse skeptics fear the prospect of unprotected data and large-scale user surveillance on a scale never seen before. Ironically, the largest company pushing the Metaverse, Meta (previously known as Facebook), has faced its own fair share of privacy scandals in the internet’s current iteration, culminating in Mark Zuckerberg being infamously hauled before the United States Congress to answer for Facebook's inability to combat hate speech and data privacy violations.
In a U.S. Senate committee hearing, whistleblower Frances Haugen accused Meta of prioritizing “profit over the well-being of children and all users” when it came to creating manipulative algorithms that tap behavioral data to persuade users into spending more time on the platform.
The controversy hasn’t weakened Facebook’s popularity, but the public zeitgeist against surveillance offers lessons for Metaverse developers looking to fix many of Web2’s problems. The fledgling space can implement systems that give users full transparency on how the systems collect and utilize user data, as well as what data is collected. By emphasizing privacy and assuring users that their data won’t be used against them, smaller Metaverse companies gain a unique selling point and even an edge over any Big Tech company looking to move into the Metaverse, including Meta.
Related: A letter to Zuckerberg: The Metaverse is not what you think it is
Metaverse avatars are a conglomeration of all issues relating to privacy in the digital realm. As a user’s gateway to all Metaverse interactions, they can also offer platforms a lot of personal data to collect, especially if their tech stack involves biometric data, like tracking users’ facial features and expressions for the avatar’s own
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