Originally posted on aninjusticemag.

It’s time to rethink the metaverse industry

Metaverse poses serious threats to mental health. But most don’t realize it.

With Horizon Worlds, Mark Zuckerberg has created the supposed virtual paradise of the future. However, one user reported that she has been harassed in the digital parallel world.

Even though the Metaverse is only a virtual reality, to use it you need augmented reality glasses, digital attacks can also leave real traces. You suffer in real life.

Unlike Zuckerberg’s centralized social networks like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, there are other metaverses that rely on DAOs to manage them.

DAO stands for decentralized autonomous organization. Nobody controls the organization. It’s not like Twitter which is owned by Elon Musk. Everything works in a decentralized way. The users run the organization.

What about law enforcement on decentralized platforms?

The headlines surrounding Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement that he wanted to align his tech empire Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp with the parallel digital world were huge. However, the Metaverse has been recording declining user numbers for some time now.

The first reason is the Lack of regulation — no privacy either

Apart from virtual crimes such as fraudulent in-game purchases and attacks on virtual currencies in games, Kaspersky, a cyber attack security company, predicts that problems may arise due to the lack of regulation regarding Metaverse.

For example, Metaverse is not subject to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which puts users’ privacy at risk.

And then you will tell me, Facebook also leaked user data in 2016. I know, but the U.S. government and the European Union didn’t let that go unchallenged. They fined Mark Zuckerberg in billion-dollar amounts.

The universal nature of the digital parallel world also carries a certain potential for conflict, which can complicate regulation in this area.

Today, there are few people who use the Metaverse yet. Also, there are few services on the market.

The quality of metaverses also leaves much to be desired. As technology advances, the risks also increase.

Therefore, you should already take security precautions to avoid threats such as identity theft and account hijacking.

In the worst case, this can lead, among other things, to the loss of personal information or the theft of dollars, euros, or even cryptocurrencies.

The second reason is abuse in the Metaverse

The reality that is a bit disturbing is that sexualized violence in the digital world is nothing new. You only have to look at the news. And the actual case of Metas Horizon Worlds.

Avatar rape is one of the cases of attacks in virtual reality and augmented reality worlds.

Meta doesn’t want to let this go unchallenged and has added a new security feature that users of the Metaverse platform can activate to protect themselves from crazy users.

Despite efforts by tech companies to create protections in the Metaverse, virtual abuse and sexual assault will spread from the real world to the Metaverse. And from the Metaverse to affect users’ mental health.

And how to protect yourself from the dangers of the Metaverse?

It’s awesome to explore new technologies, but users need to get a little smarter and mentally prepared for possible threats.

It is always good not to share too much information in the metaverse. Strong passwords and personal information should be secrets.

Don’t trust anyone.

Source: aninjusticemag