Retrofit the internet

For anyone harbouring doubts about the scale of the challenge involved in trying to make the internet safer, above all for children, a new Channel 4 Dispatches programme on themetaverse is likely to dispel them. The presenter, Yinka Bokinni, dons an Oculus headset and heads off into the network of 3D virtual worlds that Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg describes as the internet’s ‘‘next frontier’’. What she finds there leaves her visibly shaken. Sexual harassment, rape threats and racist epithets are ubiquitous, and childhood offers little protection (one of the avatars she adopts is 13). Even paedophilia is freely admitted to.

The emergence of the metaverse concept, in which Meta (formerly Facebook) invested $10b last year, and the horrifying scenes in virtual-space games, raise a disturbing prospect. This is that while policymakers scramble to control the chaos on existing platforms, the billionaires who control digital media are already leaping ahead, while ignoring the new dangers that novel modes of online moneymaking are sure to create. Meta’s Quest was the most downloaded app on Christmas Day in 2021, with 8m Oculus headsets sold so far.

The tech sector’s power, wealth and influence are immense. But governments are not weaklings. Online safety must never again be an afterthought.

This opinion is not necessarily shared by Stuff newspapers.