{"id":18226,"date":"2022-02-08T09:10:07","date_gmt":"2022-02-08T17:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2022\/02\/08\/news-11959\/"},"modified":"2022-02-08T09:10:07","modified_gmt":"2022-02-08T17:10:07","slug":"news-11959","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/2022\/02\/08\/news-11959\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta blows safety bubble around users after reports of sexual harassment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Credit to Author: Christopher Boyd| Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2022 16:41:07 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s trouble brewing in the Metaverse, but the trouble isn&#8217;t a particularly new problem. In fact, it\u2019s been an issue for years &#8211; and so have many of the solutions. Strangely, Meta is having to play catch-up where some <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techtarget.com\/searchsecurity\/news\/252513072\/Metaverse-rollout-brings-new-security-risks-challenges\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">basic security and safety settings are concerned in the virtual realm<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>At Malwarebytes Labs, we&#8217;ve kept an eye on many areas for concern in the VR realm. We\u2019ve dug into the possibilities of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.virusbulletin.com\/blog\/2018\/04\/vb2017-paper-exploring-virtual-worlds-advergaming\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">ad network compromise<\/a>, and explored the <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/privacy-2\/2021\/06\/is-it-game-over-for-vr-advergaming\/\">not very successful attempts<\/a> at ad trials in paid-for VR games. We\u2019ve also looked at the risks of <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/privacy-2\/2021\/11\/zuckerbergs-metaverse-and-the-possible-privacy-and-security-concerns\/\">placing your entire home into a virtual space<\/a>. There&#8217;s even been the occasional <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/cybercrime\/2018\/01\/insecure-vr-app-exposes-customer-data\/\">data leak<\/a>. Unfortunately, this barely scratches the surface.<\/p>\n<h2>Scaling up harassment<\/h2>\n<p>One of the biggest, most pressing issues in VR spaces has always been that of sexual harassment and abuse. VR platforms have come and gone through the years, and many had security settings to prevent abuse from happening. The absence of these options for users can result in genuinely unpleasant scenarios (fair warning, some of the descriptions <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mic.com\/articles\/142579\/virtual-reality-has-a-sexual-harassment-problem-what-can-we-do-to-stop-it\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">here<\/a> are horrifying).<\/p>\n<p>Where a lack of settings exists, and where existent settings are hard to find, horrible behaviour rushes in to fill the vacuum. Many people struggle to find certain options on a plain old Windows desktop. In VR, many settings are available outside of the helmet. That is to say, you may only be able to set things to your liking on a website or portal. If you can\u2019t even get that far, you\u2019re going to be stuck with defaults which may not be very optimal.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of which\u2026<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">How it started vs. How it&#39;s going <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XUJX97HBMb\">pic.twitter.com\/XUJX97HBMb<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; The Recount (@therecount) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/therecount\/status\/1490724593002328066?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 7, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script> <\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>After what appear to be several reports of sexual harassment of various kinds in the Metaverse, Meta is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oculus.com\/blog\/introducing-a-personal-boundary-for-horizon-worlds-and-venues\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">enabling a \u201cbubble shield\u201d\/personal boundary<\/a> as a default for users to help avoid troublesome individuals. From the announcement:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p><em>Personal Boundary will begin rolling out today everywhere inside of Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues, and will by default make it feel like there is an almost 4-foot distance between your avatar and others&#8230;If someone tries to enter your Personal Boundary, the system will halt their forward movement as they reach the boundary. You won\u2019t feel it\u2014there is no haptic feedback. This builds upon our existing hand harassment measures that were already in place, where an avatar\u2019s hands would disappear if they encroached upon someone\u2019s personal space.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2>How do people harass other users in VR spaces?<\/h2>\n<p>First off, some basics. You\u2019ll notice that Meta avatars don\u2019t have legs or hips. This isn\u2019t uncommon in VR. A combination of small play areas, no sensors on legs\/feet, and difficulties in animation mean it\u2019s often easier to <a href=\"https:\/\/declarke.medium.com\/legless-in-vr-the-problem-of-locomotion-a115589f892c\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">leave the legs out of it<\/a>. An additional (very helpful) consequence of this is that it\u2019s harder for awful people to get up to no good in VR. They can\u2019t run up and grind or hip-thrust or anything else if they\u2019ve nothing to grind or hip-thrust with.<\/p>\n<p>However: there are many more ways people can be awful whether digital lower halves are present or not. Here\u2019s some of the things developers do to prevent bad happenings:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fade out arms and\/or hands should you get too close to other users. This prevents groping and pawing.<\/li>\n<li>Fade out bodies generally if you get too close.<\/li>\n<li>Fade out digital representations of your controller stick or wand.<\/li>\n<li>Allow users to \u201cpush\u201d back others if they get too close. This one isn\u2019t always optimal, as it can be used for trolling itself depending on how things are set up. Want to Jedi force-push someone into a wall or off a cliff? A badly configured push setting is how you do it.<\/li>\n<li>Emergency teleport, alongside easy to access blocking\/reporting features round off some of the most common tools in the \u201cstop bad people\u201d toolkit.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Perhaps somewhat oddly, Meta is <em>only now<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/meta-had-to-create-avatar-bubbles-to-stop-virtual-groping\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">making a bubble a default setting<\/a>. It seems an odd oversight for something so essential to VR spaces to have been lost in the mix. Meta may mention that it&#8217;s looking to \u201cset new norms in social VR\u201d, but attempting to set those norms is nothing new. Just to give one example: here\u2019s Playstation\u2019s Rec Room <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vrheads.com\/rec-room-psvr-calibrating-your-personal-bubble\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">doing much the same thing<\/a> back in 2017.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2>How do bubbles work?<\/h2>\n<p>We\u2019ve read the Meta description of how <em>its<\/em> bubble operates. How do others do it?They tend to take several aspects of the above bullet points and roll them into one. A field is placed around the individual, and anyone trying to enter it fades into non-existence. Smart programmers don\u2019t make the bubble a solid if invisible object. This is because they end up used as dodgem cars and you\u2019re back to Jedi style force pushes, minus the force push.<\/p>\n<p>According to reports, Meta\u2019s bubble isn\u2019t configurable at time of writing. Some platforms allow users to define the size and\/or shape, making it larger or smaller (or even turning it off) as desired. It\u2019s probable that Meta will allow more customisation in the near future.<\/p>\n<p>All the same, Meta definitely didn\u2019t need a raft of assault themed news stories as it tries to promote the benefits of its Metaverse. VR has always been somewhat niche, and negative perceptions via easily preventable bad actions may not help with the general uptake.<\/p>\n<h2>Haptic headaches may be round the corner&#8230;<\/h2>\n<p>You may have seen the \u201chaptic\u201d reference up above, and wondered what it is. When you use a touch screen and it vibrates, when you get hit in a video game and your controller rumbles, that\u2019s haptic feedback. The artificial replication of touch is what it\u2019s all about. Haptic sensations are one of the big future goals of VR. Meta is trialling <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2021\/11\/16\/22782860\/meta-facebook-reality-labs-soft-robotics-haptic-glove-prototype\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">haptic glove prototypes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Can you imagine the problems in VR realms that haptic sensations will bring as a result of weak or absent safety settings? It\u2019s absolutely crucial that major players in the virtual space have all their headset safety ducks in a row before adding to the sensory overload that is VR. Anything less than that is probably going to end badly for all concerned.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/malwarebytes-news\/2022\/02\/meta-blows-safety-bubble-around-users-after-reports-of-sexual-harassment\/\">Meta blows safety bubble around users after reports of sexual harassment<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\">Malwarebytes Labs<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/malwarebytes-news\/2022\/02\/meta-blows-safety-bubble-around-users-after-reports-of-sexual-harassment\/\" target=\"bwo\" >https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/feed\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Credit to Author: Christopher Boyd| Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2022 16:41:07 +0000<\/strong><\/p>\n<table cellpadding='10'>\n<tr>\n<td valign='top' align='center'><a href='https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/malwarebytes-news\/2022\/02\/meta-blows-safety-bubble-around-users-after-reports-of-sexual-harassment\/' title='Meta blows safety bubble around users after reports of sexual harassment'><img src='https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/shutterstock_1105575620.jpg' border='0'  width='300px'  \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td valign='top' align='left'>Meta has enabled a security boundary as a default in its virtual realm after reports of sexual harassment.<\/p>\n<p>Categories: <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/category\/malwarebytes-news\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Malwarebytes news<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Tags: <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/facebook\/\" rel=\"tag\">facebook<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/meta\/\" rel=\"tag\">meta<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/tag\/vr\/\" rel=\"tag\">vr<\/a><\/p>\n<table width='100%'>\n<tr>\n<td align=right>\n<p><b>(<a href='https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/malwarebytes-news\/2022\/02\/meta-blows-safety-bubble-around-users-after-reports-of-sexual-harassment\/' title='Meta blows safety bubble around users after reports of sexual harassment'>Read more&#8230;<\/a>)<\/b><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\/malwarebytes-news\/2022\/02\/meta-blows-safety-bubble-around-users-after-reports-of-sexual-harassment\/\">Meta blows safety bubble around users after reports of sexual harassment<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.malwarebytes.com\">Malwarebytes Labs<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[10488,10378],"tags":[3589,10546,24884,12990],"class_list":["post-18226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malwarebytes","category-security","tag-facebook","tag-malwarebytes-news","tag-meta","tag-vr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palada.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}