The World Economic Forum is worried about safety in the Metaverse for Children

[Viet York]

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The World Economic Forum Is Worried About Safety in the Metaverse for Children​

They are discussing the potential risks and how to protect people's privacy.

The World Economic Forum is an international nonprofit organization that promotes global economic growth, competitiveness, and social progress. The organization has been holding annual meetings since 1971 in Davos, Switzerland.

The World Economic Forum has been discussing how to protect people’s privacy in virtual reality. Virtual reality can be a dangerous place if it's not done correctly because it can lead to a lot of risks such as identity theft or even suicide from users who are not able to escape from their virtual environment.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a global organization that has expressed worries about the safety in the metaverse, mostly for youngsters who are primarily users of online communities. The group has raised a number of concerns about the anonymity and safety of young people in this upcoming alternate world, and given a few recommendations to preserve them.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) wants the virtual world to be a safe place for children.​

Big forums and institutions in the world are thinking about the implications that living a part of our lives in the metaverse might bring. The World Economic Forum, an international institution for public-private cooperation, has expressed its worries about the safety of young people in the metaverse.

It seems that gamers will initially be the primary users of the metaverse and this means that children will be the first to be exposed to these experiences. It is said that:

“Children are in front of more games across more devices for longer – partly because of the pandemic. They are witnessing wide-ranging behaviour (including abuse, if they are not monitored). And monitoring itself is becoming so much more of a challenge.”

How to Make the Metaverse a Safe Space​

The Institution made some recommendations about how to achieve safety for younger people in the future of the metaverse. According to a survey made by Wunderman Thompson, 72% of parents are wary of the metareal and its potential for privacy violations. Likewise, 66% are also worried about their safety.

With this, some companies have already started to produce protected and walled metaverse experiences designed especially for children. However in a multi-connected metaverse, this approach does not apply. The article says that "we must learn how to design better algorithms and business models, and intervene well." It says:

Anticipating new behaviors should surely be part of the mix. The metaverse enables immersive, 3D digital experiences and actions not seen before, but we are also seeing a new set of behaviors, some of them worrying, and many of which should not surprise us.

Companies are already designing metaverse experiences for kids. Epic games announced a partnership with Lego in April 2022 to produce joint metaverse allowing children to be entertained by building their own safe experiences. Epic Games is a leading game developer and it also owns Superawesome, a company that helps make children's games.

What do you think?