Fb’s ‘metaverse’ evolution could be very scary

Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday that the company will be renamed Meta, with a new focus on the “Metaverse” (a concept for a new Internet that focuses on virtual spaces) and virtual reality products. Aside from all the jokes about “metadata” and “metastatic damage”, this renaming step shouldn’t divert attention from the very real-life issues that Facebook didn’t fix.

We can hardly entrust the internet to tech platforms. We certainly cannot trust them with virtual reality.

Critics might argue that Facebook’s rebranding comes at an opportune time. Some might even speculate that the timing is slightly different from a few weeks of negative media surrounding the social media giant. Facebook has seen more than its share of controversy lately: whistleblower reports have raised concerns including online harassment, child safety issues, and even threats to democracy. A new name and corporate structure could help eliminate some of the bad press and negative associations the public has with the competitive social media company.

But the damage is deep. Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee who became a whistleblower, testified at a Senate hearing about her former company’s failures to protect children and adolescents online. Haugen also worked with journalists from the Wall Street Journal, which published The Facebook Files, an exposé that shocked the world. More recently, hundreds more documents have been obtained by a consortium of journalists across the country covering even more negative stories on Facebook.

Regardless of the name, the company formerly known as Facebook has a lot of issues that it needs to fix. But this name change signals that it won’t be able to solve them, and may even not be ready to do the work required to find solutions.

Will people give up Facebook now that we know what we know? It might be time to envision the post-facebook and post-meta-internet. We need to consider how we can foster an environment that allows small startups and nonprofits to develop meaningful alternatives to Facebook to increase competition, which in turn would lead the larger tech companies to better user experiences.

If meta-rebranding is Facebook’s way of really moving away from social media and towards virtual reality entirely, that’s even worse. We can hardly entrust the internet to tech platforms. We certainly cannot trust them with virtual reality. With the increasing use of virtual reality and augmented reality technologies, we are blurring the line between cyber and physical spaces.

Imagine yelling at you about online harassment all day, no matter where you are, whether your phone or computer is on or off. Imagine a company like Meta blocking you from accessing a virtual reality room, just like Facebook can block you from using its website and app. The law just isn’t ready to resolve these issues, and tech companies have not proven themselves to be trustworthy stewards of a new virtual reality.

The law just isn’t ready to resolve these issues, and tech companies have not proven themselves to be trustworthy stewards of a new virtual reality.

Meta’s range of products – including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus – make up a significant portion of the modern internet. However, these are not the only technology platforms with problems that could affect society as a whole. While Facebook is under heavy scrutiny by the public and regulators, platforms like YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok are getting much less attention (though all three were confronted at a Senate hearing earlier this week). Every technology platform has problems with online language, privacy, and misinformation. No platform has solved these problems perfectly, and every company has to do better.

Facebook is not alone in its failure to protect users. It’s not even alone with rebranding. Google restructured its organization into Alphabet in 2015. Like the rebranding of Facebook, Google’s restructuring may have been politically motivated. With a new organizational structure that clearly delineates the various product sectors, Google may have tried to avoid antitrust reviews – a concern likely to be shared by Facebook, which has also come under antitrust pressure.

Lawmakers and regulators must act now to protect us from the damage caused by current internet platforms and the future of virtual reality. Companies should not be able to escape the pressure of antitrust law through simple rebranding, and certainly not be able to avoid responsibility for online damage by changing their name. The revitalized Federal Trade Commission, led by FTC Chair Lina Khan, was supposed to enforce consumer protection and competition laws against Facebook and other big tech companies that do not meet current regulatory standards.

Policymakers who want to contain big tech must also be careful not to harm small startups and nonprofits in the process, both in the interests of maintaining a competitive technology market and protecting the dynamic and open internet. It might even be time to think about what a public internet would look like and how governments could offer the public some online services as alternatives to private technology platforms.

We don’t live in the metaverse yet, but it’s disturbing to think that each of us would at some point live in a world completely controlled by a loosely regulated tech company like Facebook (or Meta). We need better laws for the internet as we know it, but we also need laws that can protect us when virtual reality becomes a real, tangible part of our lives. If we want to keep up with virtual reality, updating our current privacy and online harm laws is a top priority.

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