Will the Metaverse actually replace the Internet or is it all just a big hype? "I think the truth lies somewhere in between," says Anna-Verena Nosthoff, philosopher and co-director of the Critical Data Lab at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. "With the Metaverse, it also depends on how the users will accept the offer." In an interview, she talks about the role that the Facebook Group has to play in shaping the digital parallel universe, whether the Metaverse will fulfill the old dream of an egalitarian society and what meaningful regulation could look like.
The Facebook group Meta advertises on the Internet with the words "Surgeons will be able to practice in meta-verse hundreds of times before performing complicated operations". Would you lie down with a doctor who learned your craft in a digital parallel universe?
Anna-Verena Nosthoff: That depends on the state of the art. At the beginning, I might not necessarily do that, especially when these simulations are still in the development stage. However, despite all the criticism of the Metaverse, there is certainly potential for medicine: With the help of virtual reality technologies, operations can be simulated very realistically. Meta is currently emphasizing this in its own advertising strategy – according to the motto: We make an important contribution to research. However, this obscures the fact that Facebook is concerned with other things, namely cementing its own monopoly position.
Series: Metaverse
The "Metaverse" is considered a gigantic promise – as "the next big thing", as the tech gurus in Silicon Valley say. This three-dimensional successor to the mobile Internet is intended to fundamentally change our reality. Fantasy and reality merge into a digital parallel universe. But is it more than a gimmick?
How is it that suddenly everyone is talking about the metaverse? The idea is not new. Neal Stephenson's novel "Snow Crash", which is considered a blueprint for a digital parallel universe, was published in 1992. The virtual gaming world of "Second Life" is already almost two decades old. Why is this topic popping up now?
The topicality has to do with Facebook's discourse power: Facebook has attracted a lot of attention through rebranding to Meta. In addition, Zuckerberg has published a video at the in -house development conference Connect 21 that was widespread in the media. Since then it has been the case that many people link the idea of metaverse to Facebook. It is clear: the meta -verses is not an invention of Mark Zuckerberg. It is known that Facebook is not the most innovative group. Facebook didn't even create the first social network, there were also predecessors.
But other companies such as Microsoft or Nvidia are also working on their own parallel worlds.
Yes, but I think that Facebook in many ways determines the narrative about the metaverse. On the one hand, this is evidenced by the way it is reported – many representatives of the company appear in the media. In addition, I have noticed in the English–speaking world that many discussions about the metaverse – also from leading media such as the Financial Times - were held in the Metaverse itself, for example on Facebook's VR platform "Horizon Worlds". A clever PR strategy.
There are competing stories about the future of the Internet: On the one hand, the metaverse is, on the other hand, web3, whose supporters restore the decentralization of the Internet and want to put the network on a blockchain. To what extent do these visions differ, and where, do you think, does the trip go?
Basically, there are two positions. Some say: The metaverse is not coming at all, it's just a big hype. The others say almost technodeterministically: This is the future, this will happen. I think the truth lies somewhere in between. What we will definitely see is an increased presence of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR). How this develops then is an open question that has a lot to do with how companies jump on these technologies. In the case of Metaverse, it depends, on the one hand, on how users will accept the offer. On the other hand, whether enough players are diversifying the offer. It would be conceivable for insurers, for example, to offer fitness programs in virtual reality.
What surprises me: Network thought leaders like Sascha Lobo are talking a lot about making money in the Metaverse right now. Utopias, on the other hand, are rarely a topic. Could the digital parallel universe fulfill the old promises that the Internet has not lived up to – the dream of an egalitarian society in which it does not matter whether you come from Boston or Buxtehude?
That is also the dream of the Web3 community. But I think that is an idealistic idea. This is essentially related to the fact that the current actors - especially Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft - have so much power that they can bind users to themselves through network effects. Zuckerberg will certainly make it to link the individual services of its platform - Facebook, Instagram and the meta -verses. In this respect, I already believe that certain power traumotics that we now see will reproduce.
On Facebook's VR platform »Horizon Worlds«, cases of virtual rape became known. Such sexual assaults feel to those affected as if they were happening in the real world. Do we need something like a police force in the Metaverse?
This is a delicate question. With regard to the complex forms of crime such as paedocrime, terrorist recruitment or money laundering, one is intuitively inclined to say: Yes, we need surveillance of the rooms out of a security interest. But of course, one must also ask the question: What does the future of privacy look like? If we now allow the presence of police authorities that illuminate the entire rooms, it would mean an extreme invasion of privacy.
But can that work at all? When I am on the move in physical, public space, I recognize a police officer by his uniform - provided that it is not a false policeman. In metavers, however, there are also role -playing games where players can slip into the role of a police officer or gangster.
The idea that police avatars patrol actually goes against the basic idea that you can assume different identities and don't have to commit to one identity. Technically, however, it would already be possible to label state representatives accordingly and to make the presence of police authorities transparent to the user. But I believe that there are better solutions for moderating these spaces. If we imagine the physical space, we wouldn't want a policeman on every corner.
What could better solutions look like?
In addition to reporting and exclusion procedures, which we also know from common social media, it would be desirable to train moderators that are trained in suitable, public, institutions in the long term than is currently the case. Here the "community standards", according to which are moderated, would have to be transparent and negotiated democratically. At the same time, the decisions of these moderators should be understandable. In addition, with a view to the culturally different interpretations of communicative norms, for example between the Anglo -American and the European area, a global minimal consensus is needed about unacceptable behavior, i.e. at least one bond with international human rights standards. In this context, we would also have to talk about whether we do not need completely new - sometimes "immersive" - human rights for the age of the meta -verse, which are then implemented by moderators.
After the sexual assaults on New Year's Eve 2015, Cologne's Lord Mayor Henriette Reker advised women to keep "an arm's length" away from strangers – and reaped a violent shitstorm for it. Meta has now coded exactly that: a minimum distance of 1.2 meters between avatars that you don't know. What do you think of this "safe zone"?
These are common strategies, according to the motto: We are designing a new tool to address the problem. However, many of those affected say that they were so shocked at the moment of the sexual assault that they were not even able to activate the safe zone. Solutionistic answers …
... the solution to social problems through technology ...
... So they are not enough. These are often announced by the platforms in order to avoid state regulation.
What might regulation look like?
The regulatory issues are already very complex today when we think of the debates on the network enforcement law: The question of whether you allow platforms even more to do more power by indirectly becoming a referee of freedom of expression, because states alone do not have enough technical resources to have content to moderate. However, regulatory issues in metaverse become even more complex because it is no longer just about regulating language such as hate comments, but also behavior. We are dealing with avatars, and the immersive experiences are designed so that they have almost physical character.
Let's say I have these bulky VR glasses on my head and walk through a virtual shopping mall. I stop at the sporting goods. My gaze falls on a football jersey, my pulse beats faster. What happens to this data?
One of the possible business models is what could be called a virtual future of surveillance capitalism. This is no longer just about collecting data related to our clicking behavior, but biometric data: pupil movements, but also heartbeat or body temperature when the VR headset is paired with a smartwatch. It may happen that the data is passed on to data brokers, i.e. information traders, at the moment it is collected. This also seems to be Facebook's model: the latest VR glasses that the company has launched on the market have some features that can be used to track gestures and facial expressions, for example. If we do not find any regulatory options here, a completely opaque form of microtargeting could arise. There is a risk of a complete loss of privacy.
You have to explain that.
We know the personalized advertising of Facebook, where you see an ad in the newsfeed. The virtual counterpart could be simulated interactions: I walk around with my avatar and see two people standing next to a car on the side of the road. One person says, "Hey, the car is really interesting." The other person replies: »Yes, I just bought that, I can totally recommend.« This could be a form of microtargeting that is no longer comprehensible to the user or the consumer at that moment. We need to consider whether we should obtain a general ban on data processing: a ban on biometric targeting and trading with this data. Facebook says that this data must be evaluated to enable the real-time calculation of avatars and to make the facial expressions of the characters look as realistic as possible. But at the end of the day, it's all about advertising.
A ban is a strong interference in the market. Many users consciously agree that their data may be used …
I believe that other problems could go hand in hand with the advertising model. The greater dangers lie in political instrumentalization: that I am not addressed by a group, but by a party. It seems to me that the authorities have become much more vigilant after the data scandal around the analysis company Cambridge Analytica. At that time, the regulatory authorities reacted very late. In comparison, I have the impression that the critical awareness of Big Tech is now much more pronounced - at least that gives something hope.
Do you think that today's players will still be dominant in five to ten years? The keyword search, for example, has to be organized quite differently in 3D worlds, because it is no longer about indexing links, but cataloging virtual objects.
There are already voice searches, such as smart home assistants, which could be easily transferred to the metaverse. Of course, it would be interesting if there was a natural evolution of the platforms. MySpace, for example, one of the first social networks, has disappeared from the scene today. However, we should not rely on this, because with a look at Facebook or Meta, we see that this company is very adaptive and repeatedly manages to assert itself on the market through acquisitions of competitors – even if the American consumer Protection Agency FTC now regulates this more heavily. Zuckerberg puts everything on one card with the Metaverse. But it will be a big challenge. So far, his proto-metaverse "Horizon Worlds" has just 300,000 monthly active users. Even if we can currently speak of an incipient "post-solutionist" age in which the belief that technology companies solve global problems is dwindling, the leading tech companies will probably be able to adapt to the virtual environment in the end.
