Relevance: GS-3: Government Policies and Interventions for Development in various sectors and issues arising out of their Design and Implementation.

Key Phrases: Avatar, Horizon World, Meta, Neal Stephenson, NextMeet, The Management Consultancy firm Gartner;

Context

• Recently, an avatar of a female tester of the platform Horizon World was groped by a stranger.
• This mishap highlights the need of having laws for new emerging virtual spaces so that sufficient deterrence can be created for the new emerging metaverse.

Key Highlights

What is Metaverse?

• It is a network of 3-D virtual worlds where people can interact, do business, and forge social connections through their virtual “avatars”.
• The term was coined by science fiction writer Neal Stephenson in 1992.
• The term has been common among video game companies, but it has seen huge interest after it was popularised by Facebook, which has now changed its name to Meta.

What are the benefits of Metaverse?

• Forging better social connections
  • It increases the networking capacity of an individual who can now better interact with the world/ people and build connections that increase the marketability of different products.
• Enhanced learning experience
  • Associated AR and VR technologies can enhance the learning experience of the individual.
  • This would ensure students become more engaged, well-informed and intellectually more sound.
• Increased Cross-platform interaction
  • People from different platforms can come together seamlessly and interact for a particular purpose, no extra sign-in is required.
  • For instance, with NextMeet’s immersive platform, employee digital avatars can pop in and out of virtual offices and meeting rooms in real-time.
• Enhanced customer experience
  • Experience-before-you-buy would realize Customer rights and help them to make a more informed choice.
  • This would reduce the number of forced advertisements that spoil the experience with incessant pop-ups.

An instance of Groping: Difference vis-a-vis conventional crimes

• Victim
  • It doesn’t involve physical or economic harm to the victim like a civil or criminal offence.
• Scene of Crime
  • The act of the crime also doesn’t occur in the existing physical space
• Act of Crime
  • The act of crime is also of virtual nature and doesn't hold any physical verifiable evidence (as the Metaverse platform doesn’t record/ track users' behaviour and actions.
• Accused
  • It also doesn’t involve physical individuals who have perpetrated the said crime.
  • The physical appearance of the accused can’t be verified by physical verification (which is the usual procedure).

An instance of Groping : a virtual crime is still a crime

• Outraging the modesty of a woman is a crime wherever it is done and whoever has done it.
• Laws don't only exist in the physical world, but should also exist in a virtual world where there are chances of a crime occurring, which can affect the psychology of the victims.
• There shouldn’t be any artificial condition between the virtual and physical world as with increasing linkage between the two, the chances of virtual experience affecting our psyche have increased.

Challenges of Metaverse

• Increased cases of Crimes against Women
  • How to register such a crime?
    • Lack of laws to extend such protection to women
  • How to verify that such a crime has occurred
    • No practice of Meta platforms to track each user and his/ her activity.
  • How to catch the accused
    • Meta platforms don’t keep track of users and their verifiable physical identity as by doing so there can be issues of privacy.
• Issues of IPRs (Intellectual Property Rights)
  • The Management Consultancy firm Gartner reports that 30 % of organisations will have products and services ready for the Metaverse.
• Issues related to the Right to privacy and profiling of individuals
• Psychological impacts of dual reality
  • As per Gartner, 25% of people will spend an hour per day in the Metaverse by 2026 for work, shopping, education, and entertainment.

The need for laws

• Law should protect people.
  • Increased digital presence necessitates laws which protect users from such nefarious actions and against such abuse.
• Creativity must be rewarded.
  • Creative actions on a new platform should be protected so that the right people derive awards for their hard work.
• ‘Growing’ in the right way
  • Any new space must be protected under law so that its natural development is not hampered by the fear of criminal elements and their abuses.

Way Forward

• Bring in Data Protection Bill 2019
  • This will address the issues of privacy and ensure that data storage and data tagging don’t violate the judgement in the case of K.S. Puttaswamy (2017)
• Extend and update the legislation protecting women to cover all such offences which are morally wrong.
• Enhance responsibilities of the platform to sensitise their users about appropriate virtual behaviour and take stringent actions against genuine complaints.
  • This could be on the lines of Digital Media Ethics and Guidelines for Social Media Intermediaries.
• Upgrading technologies
  • As Metaverse is touted as Internet 2.0, a smooth transition to this new space will require a change in the current framework of Internet, which is essentially a file sharing protocol.
  • Algorithms which track users' actions without diluting privacy rights and strengthening protection for individuals should be brought into practice.

Conclusion

• As the Metaverse gets closer to imitating the physical world, the damage (psychological, emotional, and even physical) could become ever more real. For the law to keep up with the changes in crime and suit the changing needs, it must update itself.

Source: Indian Express

Mains Question:

Q. What is metaverse? What are its benefits and associated challenges? Suggest a suitable way forward in this regard.