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PREDATOR 'HAVEN'
Warning Metaverse is a ‘playground for pedophiles as sex offenders can groom kids using child-friendly avatars’
THERE'S almost nothing preventing sexual predators from joining the metaverse and grooming kids for sexual exploitation, experts have warned.
That creates "very real fears" the metaverse will become a breeding ground for sex offenders to share child abuse images and force kids into sex acts and prostitution, lawyer Patrick Roberts told The Sun.
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Users create avatars in the metaverse that roam the rapidly developing and immersive 3D digital world and interact with people from around the globe.
"The metaverse's one-to-one, immersive conditions make it easier for
bad actors to persuade, mislead and manipulate," according to a March 2022 Common Sense Media report.
"The deceptive possibilities of bots, 'deep-fakes,' AR-altered realities are daunting, especially for tweens, who will have trouble discerning what or who is real."
Roberts, of the North Carolina-based , said it's "easy" to go from the metaverse to video chats to distribution of explicit material.
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"We're talking about a matter of minutes," he said.
"Predators can meet kids through child-friendly avatars, gain their trust in the metaverse and then take their interactions offline.
"That can mean meeting up in real life or chatroom conversations and video chats where a child can be talked into disrobing."
The warning comes at a time when Epic Games, which developed the popular game Fortnite, and LEGO announced a "long-term partnership to shape the future of the metaverse."
The promising mashup of the two mega companies is being billed as a "family-friendly digital experience" for kids to play "in a safe and positive space," according to the companies' April 7 joint statement.
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The statement specifically mentioned protecting children's privacy and safety in their statement, but didn't say how that will be done.
John Bandler, a former Manhattan prosecutor who teaches cyber security and cyber crime at New York's , said the only privacy law relating the age of the website visitor that he can think of that's currently on the books is COPPA.
- which stands for Child Online Privacy Protection Act - is a federal law that protects websites that appeal to children (under 13) from collecting their information.
There are also some criminal laws that protect children from certain predatory conduct, though they can be difficult to investigate and prove, he said.
Most metaverse games and worlds require users to be age 13 or older.
But there's currently no age or ID verification in most metaverse worlds, and Roberts said he doesn't know if one could be created because it may infringe on privacy laws.
So as it stands now, a 10-year-old can say he/she is 25 while a sexual predator can pretend to be 13.
"Bad people will always do bad things," Bandler said. "Before the internet, you can only be victimized if you were close, physical proximity. The internet changed that.
"But the internet has been around awhile and social media has been around awhile, so I'm not sure if this is a new threat ... It's a new twist and a new tool."
Meta (formerly Facebook) said in an emailed statement said the metaverse is like the internet and it will exist with or without Facebook, but it "won't be built overnight."
"Many of these products will only be fully realized in the next 10-15 years," a Meta spokesperson said.
"There’s a long road ahead. But as a starting point, we’re announcing the XR Programs and Research Fund, a two-year $50 million investment in programs and external research to help us in this effort.
"Through this fund, we’ll collaborate with industry partners, civil rights groups, governments, nonprofits and academic institutions to determine how to build these technologies responsibly."
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Nearly a year ago to the day, Epic Games announced a $1 billion investment into shaping the metaverse.
And that's just one of dozens of companies that has poured money into this digital frontier over the last year.
The possibilities are endless for the metaverse, which could replace the internet one day, and companies are barely scratching its surface.
But with booming possibilities lurk an unknown, criminal underbelly in an unregulated space that includes so many children.
The March 2022 Common Sense Media report said millions of children already use "non-immersive gaming systems" to connect to virtual worlds like Roblox and Fortnite.
In 2021, Roblox reported it had over 100 million monthly users under 13 years old in 2021.
"Wall street wants to invest, but you're not hearing anything from someone like (US Attorney General) Merrick Garland. There haven't been any task force announcements," Roberts said.
"I'm not aware that the government has even talked about developing a framework. We're still trying to regulate crytocurrency and bitcoin, and that gained popularity two or three years ago.
"So we're probably five to 10 years away from any significant regulations on the metaverse, and by then the ship may have passed us by and we're on to something else."
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Bandler, who has expertise in the world of virtual currency, said it was first invented in 1996 and was followed by the invention of Bitcoin in 2008/2009, which gained popularity around 2013.
He said there are regulations that have been in place for about a decade, but "those regulations are still evolving and there have been many recent developments on that front."
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