With the renaming of Facebook to Meta, the group of Mark Zuckerberg (37) actually wanted to finally get out of the negative headlines. But the problems with the social network persist – and the beautiful new digital “Horizon World” seems to have the same social problems as Facebook.
Facebook users have been spied on
For example, Facebook now has to warn around 50,000 users worldwide that they have been the target of cyber attacks via the social network. Critics of authoritarian regimes, human rights activists and journalists are particularly hard hit. They were spied on by so-called cyber mercenaries via Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp & Co.
In one A 17-page report, Meta describes how these cyber mercenaries act and what steps the network has taken against their activities. The accounts of seven companies that had apparently launched this type of espionage attacks were blocked. At the same time, Meta demands that in the future governments, online platforms and civil society should work together to ensure that this form of crime is no longer possible.
Sexual harassment in virtual space
However, the first reports from the beta version of the new digital world are likely to be worse for Meta „Horizon World“ being. According to the US-Magazin „The Verge“ one of the testers reported in a forum: “Even on the normal Internet, sexual harassment is not funny. In virtual reality, however, it feels even more intense. ”The anonymous user went on to say:“ Not only was I touched last night, there were other users who supported the behavior. I felt alone and isolated. “
Bloomberg author Parmy Olsen describes her stay in Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of the future as anything but pleasant. Title of your report: “It is uncomfortable to be a woman in the metaverse”. Olsen reports that she was surrounded and photographed by men, that male avatars kept coming uncomfortably close to her.
Meta itself speaks of problems with the user interface of the new, digital world in the incidents. A company spokeswoman commented on the incidents: “Our goal is to make ‘Horizon World’ safe and we are working hard to make that happen.”
To observers of similar problems on Instagram and Facebook, Meta’s answer sounds amazingly familiar. It is still unclear whether the new technical platform will struggle with the same problems as Meta’s previous social networks. But one thing is certain: the start is more frightening than promising.
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