What to Make of the Metaverse?

Why it’s likely that the metaverse won’t be good for humanity.

In October of 2021, social media giant Facebook announced that it had changed its name to Meta. The ancient Greeks gave us the word Meta, who used it to mean ‘after’, ‘beyond’ or even to transcend. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg clearly chose this name for that very reason since he is looking far ahead into the future of his company, far beyond today’s two-dimensional experience of posting photos and text on Facebook. He wants to evolve Facebook into an entirely new experience, where we interact and socialize in a virtual 3D world.

There is great promise and potentially great value in this next epoch of humanity but will the metaverse usher in a golden age, or is it all what the Roman’s called bread and circuses?

The Metaverse in it’s most simple explanation, is a three-dimensional universe generated by Meta’s powerful and massive server farms.  And you’ll be able to inhabit and navigate through this universe in first person using electronic visual aids like 3D Googles, allowing you to interact with your environment as if seeing it through your very own eyes. There are fewer limitations restricting you than you’d find in real life. For example, you can fly, leap high into the air,  and even explore alien-looking worlds without leaving the comfort of your living room.

This naturally sounds fun. The metaverse as a place to unwind, meet people and get silly is a-ok in my books. But it’s clear that Zuckerberg’s plans are much more ambitious than that. He claims; “The metaverse will be a collective project that goes beyond a single company. It will be created by people all over the world, and open to everyone.” He further states that the Metaverse will be a focal point for socializing, entertainment, gaming, exercise, getting work done, education and for commerce. So clearly, Zuckerberg’s Metaverse is a virtual platform that aims to provide an alternative to the reality-based experiences that occupy a significant sphere of every day life.

Once you grasp the enormity of Metaverse, one might ask –  is the Metaverse then a good thing for humanity? And that’s a big question. So big that answers won’t come easy. Many pundits have already damned the Metaverse, saying it will usher in a dystopian state, one where we eagerly consent to plug into this virtual reality permanently, like in the popular 1999 film The Matrix starring Keanu Reeves. But, despite some obvious negative impacts, I’m really not so sure things will become so dire.  So, I’ll offer a four-point framework to help think this through, before I finally conclude on what the Meraverses’s predicted net-benefit to society is. Today’s post will form Part 1 of a four part series examining the Metaverse’s predicted net benefit to our society. I invite your comments to help expand our thinking and help me to improve the remaining parts.

In this article, I will address the first point in evaluating the Metaverse and that is – Access, Privacy and Freedom. Specifically, I’ll determine if access to the Metaverse is apt to be equally shared amongst all members in society or just a select few, and what can we expect in relation to our privacy and freedom.

In our reality, people are free to enjoy public spaces, enter shops or markets and under law, may work in any occupation without discrimination. However, there are limits to all of these spaces. Your local park may close at certain times of the year, the doors to the mall will be locked to entry overnight or on holidays, and you simply may not have the qualifications to be the next astronaut or tax auditor. So even here in the real-world, limitations do apply and restrict our access to public spaces, commercial areas, and jobs, fully or at times. There’s no reason to think that these will be any worse in the Metaverse. For in the Metaverse, public spaces can spring up out of nothing, having no hazards or any other reason that they couldn’t be enjoyed 24×7. Shops too, could operate in a self-service format, and if not, be staffed by hosts who connect to the Metaverse from various time-zones across the globe, giving you the ability to shop till you drop 24×7. And collaboration with your work chums would likely improve in a 3D world of objects, movement and gestures, at least compared to the rather flat and clunky Zoom meetings that have all been commonplace since Covid. Taking all of these together,  I find it hard to argue that the individual Metaverse user will have less choice in where and when they can access the spaces than they do now in the real world.

But what if one does something a bit less ‘stark’. Perhaps they say something that some find objectionable, or expresses an opinion that is unpopular to many, but does not fall discreetly within rules, but instead, lands in the gray areas?

However, there is one element of access that deserves more scrutiny, and that is access to the Metaverse platform itself. The cost of the technical equipment needed to enter the Metaverse may present a barrier of entry to some. But it’s  unlikely to be a major one. For example, most people in the west have spent tens of thousands of dollars for the car or two in their driveway. What’s a few thousand dollars more for Metaverse Goggles for the whole family? And just like public transit, governments would likely step in to provide subsidies or even equipment to shuttle those who cannot afford to, up the onramp to the Metaverse, so in all, there is also no reason to think access to the Metaverse will be exclusive to the rich.

But there is a big fly in the ointment since the freedom of access to the platform itself will have to be regulated. Why? Well, imagine someone who enters the Metaverse and hurls profanities, obstructs the enjoyment or productive activities that occur within it, or maybe, they find a way to steal money from unsuspecting users? Clearly, in these stark examples, Meta will need to employ a police force of sorts to identify and ban users from participating in the Metaverse for some time. Think of it as a virtual incarceration or a digital jail. And upon reflection, in scenarios of clear-cut law-breaking, I can find no difference in this than a real-world scenario where someone breaks the law and goes to prison. In our reality, should you kill someone, you cannot pass Go or frequent Starbucks, Costco or Ben and Jerry’s.

But what if one does something a bit less ‘stark’. Perhaps they say something that some find objectionable, or expresses an opinion that is unpopular to many, but does not fall discreetly within rules, but instead, lands in the gray areas? What if they spread information that some deem as false and that others deem factual?

We only need to see how Facebook has handled this in the past to get a sense for how Meta will handle it in the future. Forbes reported in May of 2021, that Facebook had banned 1.3 Billion accounts over a three month period between October and December of 2020 in an attempt (as they claim), to combat ‘fake’ and ‘harmful’ content. This has been seen by many on the right as censoring free speech, while many on the left see this as a means to combat misinformation and promote social justice. One thing is certain however, there is no way to adjudicate these potential offenses with 100% accuracy. Even if they get a small percentage of these wrong, that could result in millions of people unjustly banned from the Metaverse at any given time.

The Verge reported in October 2020 that not only has Facebook banned anti-Covid vaccination ads, but that it, “actively promotes vaccination through a public information campaign and directed users to vaccination sites…”. One may agree with the need and urgency to promote Covid vaccinations but at the same time, one can see how eliminating any and all criticism of this policy will open up a Pandora’s Box of malcontent from those who feel they are being silenced, or connect this policy with giving the government more latitude to hide their incompetence or mistakes in the future since they can expect to face less scrutiny.

And this leads to an ugly truth about the Metaverse.  In order to police the metaverse, you will have to give up your privacy, simple and plain, just as you do on Facebook today – but worse. Every conversation, transaction, location and more, will have to be monitored, tracked, recorded and analyzed. In this regard, the Metaverse will be less oriented to freedom of movement, freedom of speech, and any semblance of privacy than you have in your reality today. Like Orwell’s 1984, there will be the equivalent of camera and microphone in every room and outdoor space. You will have nowhere to hide, nowhere to let your hair down, the things you might say in confidence, that you would never put in print cannot be uttered, lest they fall outside of strict guidelines  and result in your expulsion from the platform. The legal framework required to operate the Metaverse will be immense. The fact it will have to be nested inside a private corporation is a topic to explore in and of itself, but one thing is certain – the Metaverse will be a massive technical endeavor – but – these technical challenges will pale in comparison to the human ones.

I’ve written previously about the fact that technology will not save us. This statement applies to the Metaverse without any doubt. Yet, the Metaverse will bring positive aspects to our society that I will write about in subsequent posts. But an examination of the predicted reality relating to access, privacy and freedom, puts it on precarious footing for there is nothing to convince the educated mind that it will be free at all – to begin with. To satisfy the schizophrenic advertisers (who despise discontent), and fickle politicians (who pander for votes), immense pressure will be put on Meta to conform to the wishes of the vocal minority of trolls and those easily maligned, and this unrelenting barrage will force it to surveil, judge and banish those with even an inkling of malcontent or opinions that run against the prevailing norm.

In other words, it will be no different than what it does today, and most probably, something much worse, as it decides who gets access and who does not. And that’s the very definition of – unequal.

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