First, according to the report, “regulators must address the predatory, anticompetitive practices of Mark Zuckerberg.”
Second, it is “alarming that, to this day, the US has no adequate data protection laws to safeguard consumers against abusive data harvesting practices across platforms, allowing companies like Meta to sell data to 3rd parties with little oversight.”
Third, as the Digital Services Act (DSA) gets written into law in Europe, other world governments “must use this landmark legislation as a blueprint for how to regulate Big Tech companies in their own jurisdictions.”
Another report found that incidents of sexual harassment and assault in the metaverse are commonly met with “dismissive, abusive and misogynistic” responses, according to MIT Technology Review.
However, on a larger scale, the majority of American adults agree that online harassment is a problem, with 41 per cent saying they have experienced some form of harassment in digital spaces, a Pew Research study found.
An associate professor at Ohio State University who researches the social implications of virtual reality, Jesse Fox told the MIT outlet, “People should keep in mind that sexual harassment has never had to be a physical thing. It can be verbal, and yes, it can be a virtual experience as well.”
