Meta's 'Personal Boundary' feature to make VR world sexual harassment-free

To make the virtual reality world sexual harassment-free, the social network Meta has come up with a 'Personal Boundary' feature for Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues virtual reality (VR) systems.  

This feature will make it feel like there is around a four-foot distance between your avatar and others. It will help in avoiding unwanted interactions.  

This comes as Metaverse may also witness sexual harassment from people through virtual avatars.   

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Vivek Sharma, Vice President, Horizon, said, "Over time, we'll continue to make improvements as we learn how this affects people's experiences."   

The system will halt an avatar’s forward movement by default if it tries to enter someone else’s personal boundary as it has reached the set limitation.  

In a blog post late on Friday, Sharma said, "You won't feel it -- there is no haptic feedback. This builds upon our existing hand harassment measures that were already in place, where an avatar's hands would disappear if they encroached upon someone's personal space."  

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It may also help in setting behavioural norms, which is important for a relatively new medium like VR.   

"In the future, we’ll explore the possibility of adding in new controls and UI changes, like letting people customise the size of their Personal Boundary," Sharma informed.  

(With inputs from agencies)