This article is the first in the series of sharing insights into current events to make sense of tech policy, and help people understand the forces that are reshaping their world at the intersection of politics / technology / society.

I had a couple of days to think about Zuckerberg’s announcement of the Metaverse. I am still coming to terms with the implications this brave new digital world constitutes in terms of security, regulation, and the geopolitical power shift that has been going on for some time now, which is resulting in a new global order. There are questions that we need to discuss as an individual, but also as a society. Especially, because Big Tech companies have become geopolitical players by having taken control of aspects of society, the economy, and national security that were long the exclusive preserve of the state[1].

Metaverse

The metaverse idea is about “digitizing your home away from home. It is about creating immersive ecosystems – a virtual world existing in parallel to the real world”.[2] Scott Stein defines it as a sort of a “future-forward social hub, a space where avatars can meet”, where VR and AR will enable people to immerse themselves into some sort of virtual world. 

Zuckerberg presented it as being able to unlock a massively bigger creator economy, which will also incorporate other aspects of online life such as shopping and social media. What this implies: There will be some challenges yet ahead to connect different online platforms to each other and agree on a set of standards. Especially considering that Facebook and Microsoft have already been making large strides into this direction [3]. In other words, Facebook/Meta isn’t the only company with plans for a metaverse.

All in all, it is safe to say that Metaverses are perhaps the clearest admission yet that the future of tech lies in a mix of many devices accessing a shared online world, which may be more immersive and 3D than the internet you’re currently using to read this story.[4] It is however also important to keep in mind that previous virtual meeting places e.g. Second Life, have quickly become insignificant after a short hype and investments of even large brands. 

Personal Security 

There are concerns about a new world tied to a social media giant that could get access to even more personal data and is accused of failing to stop the proliferation of dangerous misinformation and other online harms that exacerbate real-world problems. 

Also, would a private user be able to move around the virtual world without being tracked and monitored? What can Facebook/Meta do in this respect, given the company’s struggles to moderate today’s online world?  

Andrew Bosworth, a Facebook veteran and set to become company-wide CTO soon, argues that Facebook’s history is what makes it the firm best suited to the task. It has the largest team working on the potential harms that might befall users in the metaverse — everything from harassment, hate speech and misinformation to digital theft — and is the only company with experience tackling such challenges at the scale of entire populations. In addition, Bosworth notes that there are also some aspects of a metaverse that should be easier to handle than either moderating widely accessible content or policing the real world. He highlights the option to mute someone who is behaving inappropriately and have them permanently unable to bother you, an option not available in the real world.[5]

Obviously, Bosworth is biased in his assumption, but he does have a point in terms of experience in moderating, knowing what to do to effectively counter many of the issues being raised, and having access to the product (the algorithms itself). Unfortunately, so far Facebook/Meta has not shown the will to do enough in this respect.

Regulation

Existing real-world legal authorities could struggle to assign jurisdiction over a digital world that transcends physical location. Another problem is the time it takes to draft and pass legislation already. As we can see today, legislation seems to be drafted as a reaction to a problem that arises in the digital world. The necessary frameworks for regulation and agile approaches to governance need to be devised to counter the problem of disinformation. There is no one size fits all. Mechanisms for best practices are needed that work on various levels and across borders, but at the same time, the risk of over regulating should be taken serious. This is a multi stakeholder endeavour and needs to be applied on various levels of interaction. 

The European Union is spearheading for greater sovereignty over digital space, which is most likely the case because the lack of homegrown cloud, search, and social media conglomerates that makes passing ambitious legislation easier. There is however the small exception of Ireland and their bias towards Big Tech, since some of the largest internet platforms have established their headquarters there. The case in the USA is different: Big Tech’s powerful lobbying has continued to preclude expansive new regulations that could pose a serious threat to the digital giants even though Democrats and Republicans agree on the topic of regulating Silicon Valley more aggressively. 

A new regulatory package advancing in the EU would bolster its powers to fine Internet platforms over illegal content, control high-risk AI applications, and potentially break up technology companies that EU bureaucrats deem too powerful. It is trying to increase the accountability of online platforms and clarify the rules about taking down illegal content, including hate speech and incitement to violence. It also pushes for transparency by allowing access to independent research. The main legislation proposed are the Digital Service Act, the Digital Market Act, the AI Act, the Data Act – providing the EU with a broad set of tools. The question of their effectiveness, and how many loopholes will be exploited remains to be seen. 

Only time will tell, if this will work out in favour of the geopolitical position of the EU overall, but the announcement by Facebook/Meta to create 10,000 new jobs in the region, seems to tilt the momentum towards the EU right now. In other parts of the world, governments are taking steps to tame these new players of the digital sphere. We have witnessed how China has cracked down on Alibaba and Ant Group, or India’s ongoing pressure on foreign social media companies. Big Tech is facing a political and regulatory backlash on multiple fronts. 

What these efforts in legislation and the show of force in China show, is that Big Tech cannot decouple themselves from physical space completely, and are therefore subject to national laws, yet. For the time being, there are still ways to subject Big Tech to adhere to physical space with the use of: Fines, sanctions, taking down websites, or the arrest of the ones responsible.

New Global Order

Big Tech are increasingly shaping the global environment in which governments operate. They do not operate or wield power exclusively in physical space, but in digital space. The implications of this fact bear on virtually all aspects of life. Tech companies are not just exercising a form of sovereignty over how citizens behave on digital platforms; they are also shaping behaviours and interactions e.g., the Cambridge Analytica scandal comes to mind in the case of political influencing, but also shopping preference algorithms, etc.   

The next decade will test what happens as the politics of digital and physical space converge. Governments and technology companies are poised to compete for influence over both worlds—that’s why Ian Bremmer also developed a typology to better categorize Big Tech companies. It is a way of trying to understand their goals and vision, and how that might affect our current understanding of global affairs. Facebook/Meta Zuckerberg is classified as techno-utopian, and is described as a charismatic visionary who sees technology not just as a global business opportunity but also as a potentially revolutionary force in human affairs. This typology centres more on the personalities and ambitions of technology CEOs rather than the operations of the companies themselves. Techno-utopians look to a future in which the nation-state paradigm that has dominated geopolitics since the seventeenth century has been replaced by something different altogether.” [6]

There is no sense in predicting or imagining a world where techno-utopians would set the rules, but the implications would be vast to say the least.  

[1] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2021-10-19/ian-bremmer-big-tech-global-order?utm_medium=promo_email&utm_source=lo_flows&utm_campaign=registered_user_welcome&utm_term=email_1&utm_content=20211104

[2] https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/facebook-goes-meta-what-is-the-metaverse-and-why-is-big-tech-obsessed/

[3] https://www.popsci.com/technology/facebook-planning-name-change-for-rebrand/

[4] https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/facebook-goes-meta-what-is-the-metaverse-and-why-is-big-tech-obsessed/

[5] https://www.axios.com/safer-metaverse-andrew-bosworth-f0f1a450-ea47-48a4-8e03-fe1cf3d5bb3b.html

[6] https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2021-10-19/ian-bremmer-big-tech-global-order?utm_medium=promo_email&utm_source=lo_flows&utm_campaign=registered_user_welcome&utm_term=email_1&utm_content=20211104