UK’s Upcoming Child Safety Bill Should Apply to Metaverse Too, Lawmakers Say

The United Kingdom has created a new bill for online safety, which proposed measures that would prevent children from coming to harm on the internet. The bill did not pass as of yet, but experts agree that lawmakers are likely to approve it. However, the lawmakers in the upper house of Parliament agreed yesterday that the bill should also apply to metaverse technology.

The new bill should cover the metaverse

The proposal emerged on March 17th of this year, Dubbed the Online Safety Bill. After months of discussions and considerations, the bill has entered the final stages of approval prior to being passed into law.

But, as mentioned, the lawmakers believe that it should also include the metaverse — a superset of virtual realities, which became widely popular over the last few years. The metaverse captured the attention of multiple tech giants. So much so that even the social media giant Facebook rebranded to Meta as a symbol of its commitment to the sector and its intention to take social technologies to the next level.

While the metaverse technology is still in its early days, multiple active metaverses exist already. Furthermore, lawmakers seemingly believe this technology will soon become widespread enough that it is worth introducing laws intended to make it safe for children.

Melanie Dawes, the CEO of Ofcom, commented on the matter last October. She said: “These virtual reality experiences are very immersive and the degree of harm that can be created and indeed the degree of enjoyment can be that much more intense.”

Furthermore, the Center for Countering Digital Hate filmed and analyzed 100 visits to Meta’s most popular world on its flagship platform. The world, called Horizon Worlds, saw regular harassment of minors, according to the Center’s report.

The bill’s wording guarantees it will apply on future technologies

Online bullying and harassment have been a problem for decades since the internet went mainstream. However, the authorities believe that virtual reality experiences and technologies hold the potential to take it to the next level and bring serious harm to children. As a result, lawmakers in the House of Lords believe that the issue needs to be addressed immediately, at its root, arguing that the Online Safety Bill cannot allow metaverse technology to be an exception.

Lord Stephen Parkinson, who also serves as the Department for Culture, Media, and Sport minister, said that the metaverse is in the scope of the bill. He added that the bill was created to be technology-neutral and future-proof, meaning that it should be able to keep pace with emerging technologies.

Essentially, it was created in a way that makes it apply to anything communicated using internet services, and that description includes even things like objects or avatars in the metaverse, regardless of the fact that this was not specifically mentioned in the bill.