Recently, several series of reports on virtual sexual harassment in its metaverse have been reported. To create a safe space and environment within the intriguing world of Metaverse, Meta has taken a commendable initiative for the safety of avatars. Meta has responded to the cases in its metaverse by limiting how close avatars can get to each other. This feature is called “Personal Boundary”.
Restricting Privacy Invasion
Meta has added and launched a new feature that will restrict the avatars from being within very close proximity of each other. Dubbed as ‘Personal Boundary’, the feature will not by default permit the avatars in Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues to get within about four feet of one another.
Personal Boundary will prevent anyone from invading an avatar’s personal space. If someone tries to enter the Personal Boundary, the system will halt their forward movement as they reach the boundary. Users won’t feel it—there is no haptic feedback. This builds upon Meta’s existing hand harassment measures that were already in place, where an avatar’s hands would disappear if they encroached upon someone’s personal space.
Comprehensive Response to Reported Cases
Several women have reported cases of sexual harassment in the Metaverse. In Jan 2022, a 43-year-old British woman claimed she was virtually groped by a gang of male avatars in Horizon Venues. Prior to that, in December 2021, another woman had claimed she was virtually groped in Horizon Worlds.
On 4 Feb, Vivek Sharma, Vice President of Horizon, said in a blog post that Personal Boundary would create “more personal space for people and make it easier to avoid unwanted interactions.” He further added “If someone tries to enter your Personal Boundary, the system will halt their forward movement as they reach the boundary. You won’t feel it—there is no haptic feedback. This builds upon our existing hand harassment measures that were already in place, where an avatar’s hands would disappear if they encroached upon someone’s personal space.”
Establishing Norms through Added Features
Although the Personal Boundary feature will be turned on by default, users can still be able to high-five or fist-bump with each other by extending their arms. According to a spokesperson for Meta, users cannot choose to disable Personal Boundary since it is intended to establish norms for interactions in Meta’s metaverse.
Horizon World allows users to hang out with up to 20 people in a virtual space. Whereas, Horizon Venues allows people to create avatars that can watch online events together. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has told employees to focus on video content amid competition from TikTok and following a brutal post-earnings market cap loss.
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