Racism is already real in the metaverse — here’s how we can fix that
Racism and technology often go hand in hand — let’s change that
Utopian visions versus hard realities
Utopian visions in the early days of the internet typically held thatlife online would be radically differentfrom life in the physical world. For example, people envisioned the internet as a way to escape parts of their identity, such as race, gender and class distinctions. In reality, theinternet is far from raceless.
Whiletechno-utopiascommunicate desired visions of the future, the reality of new technologies often doesn’t live up to these visions. In fact, the internet has brought novel forms of harm to society, such asthe automated dissemination of propaganda on social mediaandbias in the algorithms that shape your online experience.
Zuckerberg described the metaverse as a moreimmersive, embodied internetthat will “unlock a lot of amazing new experiences.” This is a vision not just of a future internet, but of a future way of life. However off target this vision might be, the metaverse is likely – like earlier versions of the internet and social media – to havewidespread consequencesthat will transform how people socialize, travel, learn, work and play.
The question is, will those consequences be the same for everyone? History suggests the answer is no.
Technology is never neutral
Widely used technologies often assume white male identities and bodies as the default.MIT computer scientist Joy Buolomwinihas shown that facial recognition softwareperforms worseon women and even more so on women with darker faces.Otherstudieshave borne this out.
Whiteness is embedded as a defaultin these technologies, even in the absence of race as a category for machine learning algorithms. Unfortunately,racism and technologyoften go hand in hand. Black female politicians and journalists have beendisproportionately targetedwith abusive or problematic tweets, and Black and Latino voters weretargeted in online misinformation campaignsduring the 2020 election cycle.
This historical relationship between race and technology leaves me concerned about the metaverse. If the metaverse is meant to be an embodied version of the internet, as Zuckerberg has described it, then does that mean that already marginalized people will experience new forms of harm?
Facebook and its relationship with Black people
The general relationship between technology and racism is only part of the story. Meta has a poor relationship with Black users on its Facebook platform, and with Black women in particular.
In 2016, ProPublica reporters found that advertisers on Facebook’s advertising portal could exclude groups of people who see their adsbased on the users’ race, or what Facebook called an “ethnic affinity.” This option received a lot ofpushbackbecause Facebook does not ask its users their race, which meant that users were being assigned an “ethnic affinity” based on theirengagementon the platform, such as which pages and posts they liked.
In other words, Facebook was essentially racially profiling its users based on what they do and like on its platform, creating the opportunity for advertisers to discriminate against people based on their race. Facebook has sinceupdated its ad targeting categoriesto no longer include “ethnic affinities.”
However, advertisers are still able to target people based on their presumed race throughrace proxies, which use combinations of users’ interests to infer races. For example, if an advertiser sees from Facebook data that you have expressed an interest in African American culture and the BET Awards, it can infer that you are Black and target you with ads for products it wants to market to Black people.
Worse, Facebook hasfrequently removed Black women’s commentsthat speak out against racism and sexism. Ironically, Black women’s comments about racism and sexismare being censored– colloquially known as getting zucked – for ostensibly violating Facebook’s policies against hate speech. This is part of alarger trend within online platformsof Black women being punished for voicing their concerns and demanding justice in digital spaces.
According to a recent Washington Post report,Facebook knewits algorithm was disproportionately harming Black users, but chose to do nothing.
A democratically accountable metaverse
In an interview with Vishal Shah, Meta’s vice president of metaverse, National Public Radio hostAudie Cornish asked: “If you can’t handle the comments on Instagram, how can you handle the T-shirt that has hate speech on it in the metaverse? How can you handle the hate rally that might happen in the metaverse?” Similarly, if Black people are punished for speaking out against racism and sexism online, then how can they do so in the metaverse?
Ensuring that the metaverse is inclusive and promotes democratic values rather thanthreatens democracyrequires design justice and social media regulation.
Design justiceis putting people who do not hold power in society at the center of the design process to avoid perpetuating existing inequalities. It also means starting with a consideration of values andprinciples to guide design.
Federal laws have shielded social media companiesfrom liability for users’ posts and actionson their platforms. This means they have theright but not the responsibility to police their sites.Regulating Big Techis crucial for confronting the problems of social media today, and at least as important before they build andcontrol the next generation of the internet.
The metaverse and me
I am not against the metaverse. I am for a democratically accountable metaverse. For that to happen, though, I assert there need to be better regulatory frameworks in place for internet companies and more just design processes so that technology doesn’t continue to correlate with racism.
As it stands, the benefits of the metaverse don’t outweigh its costs for me. But it doesn’t have to stay that way.
Article byBreigha Adeyemo, Doctoral Candidate in Communication,University of Illinois at Chicago
This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Read theoriginal article.
Story byThe Conversation
An independent news and commentary website produced by academics and journalists.An independent news and commentary website produced by academics and journalists.
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