Thaís Monteiro
10 February 2022 – 6: 03 a.m.
High City server, run by Outplay, has user selection systems and rules on harassment (credit: disclosure / Outplay)
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How marks can approach the Metaverse
-Throughout the history of the internet, conflicts and abuses between users have caused the virtual interaction environment to have to be monitored to prevent potential crimes. Thus, for example, the Marco Civil Of The Internet, the law criminalizing the practice of stalking, the LGPD and many others were created. Such legislations were originated according to the frequency of these conflicts were marked presence on the platforms. In the face of an unexplored land, such as the Metaverse, all the rules and vigilances demand to be rethought.In November 2021, one user claimed that she was groped by another user on Facebook’s virtual reality platform Horizon Worlds, while others encouraged harassment. “Within 60 seconds of entering, I was verbally and sexually harassed by three or four male avatars, with male voices, essentially, but they pretty much raped my avatar and took pictures. As I tried to run away they shouted, ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t love’ and ‘go rub yourself in the photo,’” wrote Nina Jane Patel, 43, in a blog post.
From this, the goal announced last week that it will establish a minimum distance of one meter between users. Despite considering the event unfortunate, the company said the user did not use the security features to block interactions. Vivek Sharma, Vice President of Horizon platform, announced that the company will make the features more locatable and will explore the possibility of adding new controls in the future.
(Credit: Disclosure / Meta)
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As the Metaverse aims to bring more layers of reality into the dynamics of the internet, be it from the connection with blockchain, gamefication and three-dimensional attributes, the potential conflicts in this universe become capable of gaining greater scale than those found in other modes of virtual interactions, such as social and messaging platforms.
The very fact that the ideal Metaverse would be the fluid connection between different Metaverse makes the concept decentralized, which challenges the implementation of one policy only, as big techs do about their products. Twitter, for example, has its usage policies, but the user does not transit between him and Instagram as if they were connected. So each of these networks has its own security rules. In Metaverse, ” this discussion of sovereignty, territoriality and law to be applied is one of the great challenges that we have”, says Patrícia Peck, partner of Peck Advogados and member of the National Council for the protection of personal data (CNPD).
For Leonardo Britto, lawyer specializing in virtual and cyber crimes, in addition to aggression, this new territory to be explored can be accompanied by crimes against honor (insult, slander, defamation), financial crimes (from an invasion practiced by hackers within the platform, as already occurs in WhatsApp and Instagram) and ideological falsification (from the use of a data acquired improperly to create a profile as if it were another user). “Considering that this new modality of technological innovation will multiply the level of interaction of users, it is quite true that conflicts will also become more intense, so that several problems originated in the Metaverse will be referred to the judiciary”, he warns.
Metaverse becomes a means of relationship, work and revenue
-In Cidade Alta, GTA server run by outplay, there are rules that prohibit prejudice, subject to ban and removal of the server, and systems through which the player has to request permission for the other if he wants to hug or kiss to avoid any type of harassment. As it is a private server, Cidade Alta still cares for the curation of the community. The company does interviews to accept the participation of players to limit what is allowed or not in the environment, especially inadmissible attitudes in the physical world.“Just like in real life, the Metaverse is where people have a relationship with each other and are there to seek a different experience. And when we talk about people, society, regulation is essential for good coexistence. The Metaverse, to be a healthy environment, needs to walk in the same way as real life: common sense, laws, rules and consequences for attitudes that escape from what is established for that particular place”, explains Paulo Benetti, CEO of Outplay.
Brands should pay attention to the so-called “digital grills”, says Patrícia. Grilling is the criminal practice of allotment, dismemberment or making proposals on public lands, without authorization of the competent body and in disagreement with the legislation. In digital, it is made with digital titles. “From the moment you start to have a space, within the Metaverse, you can both have a movement of digital grills again, wanting to capture there, something that would be of protection of already recognized brands. So there is already a concern of brands, in this sense, as happened, previously in the domain registrations and then, in the profile and fanpage registrations of social media. This issue of brand protection with individuals is the protection of image” reputation, ” he explains.
The claim by AMG, the manufacturer and owner of the rights to the Tactical Defense Vehicles “Humvee”, was related to the possible trademark infringement, brought against Activision Blizzard, Inc. it’s Activision Publishing, Inc., for having your brand and vehicles represented at various times in the game Call Of Duty.
As long as both the development of the metaverse, and the policy is thought of, then the best thing to do is the self-regulation of the examples of what has already been learned in the era of Web 1.0, Web 2.0, says Peck, a Code of Ethics and the rules that apply to that environment, and its users, an International agreement, a code of conduct from the point of view of trade, and of the attempts of the relationship of the use of the currency, the trading-related assets, and behavior.
Maren Lau, from Meta: brands, creator economy and Privacy
-To Medium & Message, Maren Lau, Regional VP of Meta in Latin America, he explained that the company has invested 5 50 million in working with partners, civil rights organizations and creators for the next two years on security and privacy in Metaverse, and intend to use what it has learned over the years of the internet to apply in the new product. “The goal as a company was created when the internet was already created, so there was no learning of what the internet was going to become. Now, we have the learnings of how the internet has evolved. We are very attentive, ” he said.According to Benetti, the biggest challenges in instituting regulatory rules in a metaverse are to hire skilled developers to create the rules and protections and have the regulations easily accessible and understood so that users are prepared to access reality.
For Britto, it is certain that some guidelines will be applied, such as Consumer Law (in case of failure to provide service by suppliers and sellers of products within the Metaverse) and also Criminal Law (in the practice of crimes against honor, in the case of a user/avatar infringing on the dignity of another). “These are small examples, but it is certain that from the implementation, we will have to update ourselves intensively to meet the new and various improper practices”, says Britto.
** Image credit at the top: Lucky Step/Shutterstock
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