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The newest advancement in the interactive world we now live in is what has become known as the Metaverse, and a new report has expressed worry about what it could mean for children.
The report, entitled ‘Kids and the Metaverse’, was written by Nelson Reed and Katie Joseff and published by Common Sense Media. It raises concerns about the type of content children could come into contact with on this kind of server, like sexually explicit language, abusive behavior, and data collection such as facial recognition software.
A spokesperson for Meta, the new name for the Facebook group that also controls Instagram and WhatsApp, said in a statement that they are creating safeguards to protect children from content that they should not be seeing. However, Jim Steyer, a children's advocate and civil rights attorney, still has doubts.
“The bad news is our kids are more used to it than we are, and so they can be exposed to sexual and violent content in the metaverse without us knowing it,” Steyer explained to NBC.
This doubt was shown in action when NBC’s Kate Snow tried Meta's virtual reality technology for herself. She entered an app that was designed only for users over the age of 18, only to come into contact with a boy named Max, who stated that he was only 13. She then moved on to a virtual strip club where she encountered pole dancing and offers for virtual sex acts, and again, not everyone present was of age.
Meta issued a statement that they intended to create "parental supervision tools, including giving parents the ability to lock apps with a password." While this sounds all well and good, it still seems as though programmers and moderators cannot patch up the holes in their system fast enough to prevent people from falling through the cracks.
In terms of how to combat this threat, Steyer was unequivocal, saying “there’s no question that parents have an important role in this new phenomenon. But quite frankly, the single most important responsibility is on the industry itself to behave appropriately and responsibly and for the government to do their job and regulate this new environment in a way that’s healthy and safe for our children.”
A spokesperson for Meta, the new name for the Facebook group that also controls Instagram and WhatsApp, said in a statement that they are creating safeguards to protect children from content that they should not be seeing. However, Jim Steyer, a children's advocate and civil rights attorney, still has doubts.
“The bad news is our kids are more used to it than we are, and so they can be exposed to sexual and violent content in the metaverse without us knowing it,” Steyer explained to NBC.
This doubt was shown in action when NBC’s Kate Snow tried Meta's virtual reality technology for herself. She entered an app that was designed only for users over the age of 18, only to come into contact with a boy named Max, who stated that he was only 13. She then moved on to a virtual strip club where she encountered pole dancing and offers for virtual sex acts, and again, not everyone present was of age.
Meta issued a statement that they intended to create "parental supervision tools, including giving parents the ability to lock apps with a password." While this sounds all well and good, it still seems as though programmers and moderators cannot patch up the holes in their system fast enough to prevent people from falling through the cracks.
In terms of how to combat this threat, Steyer was unequivocal, saying “there’s no question that parents have an important role in this new phenomenon. But quite frankly, the single most important responsibility is on the industry itself to behave appropriately and responsibly and for the government to do their job and regulate this new environment in a way that’s healthy and safe for our children.”
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