CONCERNS over the metaverse’s effect on individual identities have been growing among experts.
As companies continue to push forward with plans to enter the metaverse, many questions are being raised about the future of digital identities online.
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long been vocal about his plans for the “metaverse” – a digital world that will combine gaming, social media, augmented reality, and cryptocurrency for an integrated user experience.
“The metaverse is the next evolution of social connection,” Meta writes on a webpage that also hosts a 13-part audio series detailing Zuckerberg’s vision for the virtual space.
This evolution, it seems, is already here as companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia are already laying the groundwork for decentralized virtual spaces, with Meta leading the pack.
Now analysts are pondering how Zuckerberg’s vision for the metaverse will affect individuals, who, as a collective, are already highly integrated into an online world.
David Auerbach, an American author, and former Microsoft and Google software engineer posits in an essay published in Unherd that a user’s individuality will only suffer further in the metaverse.
Auerbach predicts that the virtual space will foster an environment of group uniformity that will put the melting-pot tendencies of the last century to shame.
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According to the author, It will be the “undoing” of diversity as it instead perpetuates group-thinking that only aims to validate our own opinions and interests.
“Individuality will dissolve into the unified mindset of one’s chosen monocultures. Once having joined a stratum, members will naturally play down their differences in favor of their commonalities, to the point that they forget those differences,” Auerbach writes.
Furthermore, the former engineer believes that users will not only be robbed of their individuality, but their identities will essentially be for sale, writing: “The result [of the metaverse] will be the monetization of identity…the metaverse seeks to make money off of less-loaded aspects of identity by fostering intra-group solidarity through purchases.”
Beyond the buyer-seller facet, some experts like Zuora CEO Tiernan Ray are concerned with basic individual autonomy being compromised in the virtual world.
“In a Metaverse, as conceived by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, you cannot even scratch your virtual nose without the permission of a program-controlled completely by the company,” Ray, who was also the former Technology Editor for Barron’s, writes on ZDNet.
“No one who enters into a Metaverse of any kind has any autonomy. Their every move is at the discretion of the digital controls of corporations such as Meta that reserve the right to refuse freedom of movement to anyone,” he adds.
It’s evident that the metaverse will shape our everyday lives in the future, however, the extent to which it will impact our individuality remains to be seen.
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In other news, the creators of a chilling new horror game say that the title is so disturbing they’ve been forced to censor it on PlayStation.
Apple has announced updates to AirTags following claims that the coin-sized tracking devices are being used to stalk people.
And TikTok has announced new rules, banning users who deadname or misgender others.
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