Andrew Bosworth says Meta requires “Disney level” safety, which they can't do | Hacker News Reader

Andrew Bosworth says Meta requires “Disney level” safety, which they can't do

ft.com

18 pointscbtacy17 comments

The first thing Meta should accept about VR is that people are going to have extremely kinky sex in it and there's nothing they can do about it.

Without the right "peripherals" they'll just have the same kind of "sex" they're already having - with their dominant hand.

Those peripherals already exist, for pretty cheap too. They are just synced to videos instead of vr games. Headset will be multiple times more expensive.

They'd have to be approved to be used though. It's a closed platform.

Not really. Many of them just use simple WiFi APIs and already work with the quest. It's very hard to block this if you allow internet access to an app.

Example: https://www.handyfeeling.com which you can use with the sexlikereal app. It connects to your WiFi on its own and has a cloud service.

I don't really understand why they'd want to ban this kind of stuff. Let people have their harmless fun. Why does everything have to be kid friendly? Some people don't even have kids. Just put it behind an age check or something. Just like violent games which are on the platform.

Ps couldn't read the article as it's paywalled but the headline is pretty clear.

Well, if they run it, there is something they can do about it. That sort of summarizes the whole thing. Either they actually develop a protocol that lets people engage on their own terms in a VR world, or the just build a Facebook second life where you can go and do approved things and maybe submit an app for approval of facebook that let's you do some approved extra thing, maybe line dancing or something. It's pretty clear from the comments that what they're doing is the latter thing, so as I said earlier, why would anyone use this?

I can't think of a better way to make FB's vison for Meta sound even more boring, corny, soulless, and ugly than it already does than by implying you see Disney as the gold standard of anything content-related. Disney is like,...the concentrated essence of the worst of American content culture

https://archive.md/kZ7aF

Am I the only one that finds this whole thing very silly? I understand the idea that nobody wants a VR world where you're immediately harassed or whatever, but do you want one where facebook is listening to everything you say? Who is going to want to use this under any of the constraints FB will want to put on it?

Good point.

Seems they have two choices.

One is, as you say, listening/watching everyone's every action like the world's greatest creeper group, and silencing /banning by their arcane rules.

Other option includes saving everything, and implementing a justice system. Alan harrasses Bob Bob complains, they start a trial, check the tapes, pass judgement. Now they need an appeal system. Now they need a way for the judges to be accountable...

All of this seems so far past the basic and certainly the ethical capabilities of FB.

But then, few seem to care. As Zuckerberg famously discovered early on when people submitted personal data - "They trust me, the dumb fukcs"...

Maybe the solution is just an opt in of who you interact with and the rest is invisible to you. I don't use Facebook but isnt that roughly how it works, only friends can communicate openly with you? That would save all the moderation. But is sounds like they are trying for something where interactions are more open than that.

I'd trust Nintendo far more than I'd trust Facebook. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.

Yes, because with Nintendo you'd expect it to be fun instead of just about targeting ads to you. It will be interesting to see (a) if there is anything more to this than just selling ads and (b) if the scepticism that tech folk have extends to the real world or if people will happily participate on a Facebook vr environment

Thanks for the paywall free link!!

So yeah I agree. Making it all a guided monitored experience kinda takes the whole point of it away. It's not real human interaction if it's monitored and moderated.

I think a reactive approach in case of severe transgressions is just fine. Just like in real life. We don't have a policeman supervising every single human interaction nor would we want that. Why would we online??

There should be some safe areas for kids of course but also more open areas without all this.

Ah yes. "Disney level safety" - safety from harassment, yes, but also "safety" from having to see LGBTQ+ people, your political opponents, or anything that might upset the feeling of comfort you get from living in your $3M condo in the Valley.

> but also "safety" from having to see LGBTQ+ people, your political opponents, or anything that might upset the feeling of comfort you get from living in your $3M condo in the Valley.

Why is this necessarily a bad thing. I'm not talking about excluding people, but with respect to only dealing with subject matter you want to, in your _virtual_ reality, why wouldn't many users want it to basically be a bubble? If all you're getting is a loud version of what some other person thinks you need to pay attention to, I don't see it being very popular.

And this is probably why it won't be popular because I don't think it's possible for FB to do. The entire company is based on "increasing connection".

Note: not "meaningful connection" but just connection.

https://archive.md/kZ7aF

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