Facebook's Biggest Metaverse Safety Problem is Baked Into Facebook's Brand

The man driving Facebook/Meta's Metaverse development is seriously worried about safety on their now-in-development platform, according to a leaked memo reported by the Financial Times:

Andrew Bosworth, who has been steering a $10 billion-a-year budget to build “the metaverse”, warned that virtual reality can often be a “toxic environment” especially for women and minorities, in an internal memo from March seen by the Financial Times. He added that this would be an “existential threat” to Facebook’s ambitious plans if it turned off “mainstream customers from the medium entirely”. The memo sets out the enormous challenge facing Facebook, which has a history of failing to stop harmful content from reaching its users, as it tries to create an immersive digital realm where people will log on as 3D avatars to socialize, game, shop and work. Bosworth, who will take over as Facebook’s chief technology officer next year, sketched out ways in which the company can try to tackle the issue, but experts warned that monitoring billions of interactions in real time will require significant effort and may not even be possible. Reality Labs, the division headed by Bosworth, currently has no head of safety role.

These are all valid concerns but nothing in the Times report says anything about a core safety vulnerability on virtual platforms:

User identities, and how they're linked to one's real life name and identifying details. But this is the key means by which people -- mostly women, but also vulnerable minorities -- are targeted for stalking and abuse across platforms. Especially in immersive Metaverse-type spaces, where many mistakenly assume their identity is safe behind their quirky avatar name.

To cite just one example, Linden Lab had to walk back a plan to require real names only in Sansar, its erstwhile Metaverse platform, after strenuous protest from women and members of the LGBT community. Their concerns are quite correct, when it's not uncommon for women to be stalked in real life after their stalker does a reverse image search of their avatar.

But the thing is, Facebook's brand and DNA is utterly linked with real names. It is even stated explicitly in its stock filing with the US government:

Authentic Identity. We believe that using your real name, connecting to your real friends, and sharing your genuine interests online create more engaging and meaningful experiences. Representing yourself with your authentic identity online encourages you to behave with the same norms that foster trust and respect in your daily life offline. Authentic identity is core to the Facebook experience, and we believe that it is central to the future of the web. Our terms of service require you to use your real name and we encourage you to be your true self online, enabling us and Platform developers to provide you with more personalized experiences.

None of this has been amended or restated amid Facebook's branding shift to Meta, and it's doubtful the company won't leverage their core asset -- literally billions of real identities linked to their real interests. You can even see this in Zuckerberg's own statement announcing the name change/Metaverse shift:

In the metaverse, you’ll be able to do almost anything you can imagine — get together with friends and family, work, learn, play, shop, create — as well as completely new experiences that don’t really fit how we think about computers or phones today. 

Note the focus on activities with pre-existing friends and family, basically announcing that Meta's metaverse will come with a giant blue "Connect your Horizon account to your Facebook account" button.

If there's one saving grace here, it's that if real identities are part of Meta's DNA, that greatly increases the chance that hardly anyone will actually use its metaverse -- since after all, core to the metaverse DNA are pseudonyms, a chance to re-invent and experiment with oneself through a different identity.

Comments

[camilia fid3lis nee Patchouli Woollahra]

Facebook has the technology to track people as anonymous holes filled with various data points rather than actual identities, based on FB API scripts tracking people across various sites who haven't logged into Facebook in any way. Once Facebook gets over its hangups and obsessions with realworld identities and falls back on this tech instead despite its reduced accuracy, they will have a seat at the table. Until then, it's more likely the chair will be pulled out from under them by any number of firms that understand experimentation with identity is metaverse 101.

[Loz]

that pic reminds me of 1984, big brother!

[Pulsar]

Very true about Facebook and identities, dangers of exposing the real life name / sensitive info and what pseudonyms allow.

I don't even think it's natural.
Having a large database of faces and identifying personal information is a very recent thing in human history.
Humans always used to be essentially anonymous. When have we ever used to go around with our name over our heads or our shirts? Nobody knew who you were, until you told them. At most you could be recognized by your face, by those who already knew your face. It's very different.

You weren't going to give too much trust to random strangers and you were giving your name only after greetings, introductions and if it was necessary. Disclosing your identity or not should be the user's choice, not systematically enforced.
That's what happens in the current social virtual worlds as well: we use pseudonyms and if someone becomes a close friend, then users may choose to disclose their own real life information, if they desire to connect also in real life.

Almost the whole Internet used to be like that. Facebook using real life names worked, because (at least at first) it was aimed at connecting people you knew already: school mates, friends, family (and it was a mistake trusting Zuck already by then). But eventually it evolved into what it is now, and I think it sucks.

Will Zuck ruin the word "metaverse" too?

[Poplopo]

This seems to be a problem at both ends, because pure anonymity with endless pseudonyms allows someone to create account after account to engage in hostile and abusive behavior as much as they like with no consequences.

[Pulsar]

That's also true, Poplopo. Luckily things aren't just black or white, with just two extreme ends, and compromises do exists. On the other hand, real names don't automatically prevent abusive behaviors, in fact it's a little more complicated than that:
https://coralproject.net/blog/the-real-name-fallacy/

[Muhammad Saad]

Facebook has the technology to track people as anonymous holes filled with various data points rather than actual identities, based on FB API scripts tracking people across various sites who haven't logged into Facebook in any way.
https://howtoidelete.com/
https://howtoidelete.com/delete-your-badoo-account/