Learning About Content Moderation From Ghosts In Virtual Reality

Learning About Content Moderation From Ghosts In Virtual Reality

4 years ago
Anonymous $drS9DEX_Sj

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210720/21574447213/learning-about-content-moderation-ghosts-virtual-reality.shtml

Content moderation in virtual reality comes with its own unique challenges. What works for the moderation of text and video doesn’t neatly translate into VR. In late June, Facebook’s Horizon, a VR social space still in beta testing, released an update to prevent its blocking feature from creating ghosts. That might sound hyperbolic, but it is a perfectly apt description of the feature’s effect in Horizon prior to the update. In the earlier build, both the blocker and the blocked were made invisible to one another, but allowed to continue interacting with the same virtual world. While they couldn’t see one another, they could see each other’s effects on their shared environment. If someone blocked you, your obscene gestures might be invisible to them, but you could still move the furniture about and rattle chains – practically becoming a poltergeist.

Improvements to Blocking in Horizon