{"id":14237,"date":"2022-10-30T12:08:41","date_gmt":"2022-10-30T12:08:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dataethics.eu\/?p=14237"},"modified":"2022-11-01T16:52:35","modified_gmt":"2022-11-01T16:52:35","slug":"the-three-ms-of-the-metaverse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dataethics.eu\/da\/the-three-ms-of-the-metaverse\/","title":{"rendered":"The Three M\u2019s of the Metaverse: Monitor, Manipulate and Monetize"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The metaverse is still the new hype. But a hype that is mostly kept alive by lobbyists, futurists and well paid PR people. At least Meta’s version of the metaverse as implemented in the company\u2019s flagship \u201cmetaverse\u201d app (Horizon Worlds) is of a really poor quality, according to an internal memo that has been obtained by The Verge <\/a>and others. Vishal Shah, VP at Meta, states, “For many of us, we don\u2019t spend that much time in Horizon and our dogfooding dashboards show this pretty clearly. Why is that? Why don\u2019t we love the product we\u2019ve built so much that we use it all the time? The simple truth is, if we don\u2019t love it, how can we expect our users to love it?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But not only Meta’a own version of the metaverse not all that usable and well crafted according to Meta It is also extremely risky by design. And this goes for all the versions – because there there are many other “metaverses”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week Reuters wrote that Europol said it<\/a> was “preparing for the risk that online immersive environments – the “meta verse” – could create new kinds og cybercrime and allow existing crime to take place on a merger scale”<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Louis Rosenberg, Ph.D. seem to agree in an article in Venturebeat <\/a>where he says that: “Unless regulated, the metaverse could become the most dangerous place of persuasion ever created<\/em>“. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In another article, Rosenberg – who is a former Standford and Nasa-researcher – gives his suggestions on how to regulate the metaverse in the paper: Regulating the Metaverse, a blueprint for the future<\/a>. 

Here Rosenberg points to other types of risks than terror planning, fraud etc. He points to the fact that: \u201cinfrastructure required to enable immersive worlds will give powerful corporations the ability to monitor and mediate intimate aspects of our lives, from what products, services, and information consumers are exposed to, to what experiences they have throughout their day and who they are having those experiences with\u201d.<\/em> It is about The Three M\u2019s of the Metaverse <\/em>as <\/em>he states that core social problems relate to metaverse platforms’ inherent ability to monitor, manipulate and monetize<\/strong> users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the Solutions?
<\/strong>Some of the solutions that Rosenberg mentions in the article are non-regulatory such as shifting from ad-based to subscription-based models in order to reduce the motivation that platform providers have to profile and target their user base. But, as he writes, we cannot expect this to become mainstream anytime soon. After all this is the backbone of the World Wide Web as we know it. He also points to regulatory solutions. Some of those are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n