Facebook Wants To Create A Security System For The Metaverse Network

JAKARTA - Facebook Inc's head of global affairs, Nick Clegg, said the company was looking at ways to protect users in the metaverse. This he revealed in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, November 2.

Facebook Inc. last week changed its name to Meta Platforms Inc to reflect its focus on building a “metaverse”, a shared virtual environment that stakes its stake in the successor to the mobile internet.

Clegg, who says it can take up to 15 years for the metaverse to come to fruition, says there will be time for companies to build safety and privacy safeguards.

"This time we can work with academia, we can work with lawmakers, we can work with regulators together and collaboratively, to put a safety fence in place before the technology matures," he said in a Zoom interview.

Facebook, which has long been under scrutiny by regulators and lawmakers for its approach to user security, privacy and for failing to monitor abuse of the platform such as hate speech, has faced mounting criticism after former employee Frances Haugen leaked internal documents that she said showed The company puts profit before user safety.

The company said the documents had been used to present a false picture of its work.

On Monday, Haugen spoke at the Web Summit in Lisbon, urging Facebook Inc or Meta Platform Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg to step down and arguing Facebook should devote resources to ensuring security on existing platforms rather than investing in the metaverse.

Clegg said it was "not a good/or bad choice" between his current responsibilities and investing in the metaverse.

He also said that because the metaverse should be an "interoperable ecosystem," the company's content standards should be consistent with other tech companies building for the metaverse.

He said these interoperability protocols and standards would be "some of the toughest and most important policy work."

Facebook on Tuesday announced a new European partner in the XR Research Fund and Program, a two-year, $50 million investment that it says will help it build the metaverse responsibly.