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'Meta Wouldn't Tell Us How It Enforces Its Rules In VR, So We Ran A Test' (buzzfeednews.com) 90

Posted by EditorDavid from the over-the-Horizon dept.
To test Meta's Horizon World (their new social VR platform), BuzzFeed News created an area that was "filled with content banned from Facebook and Instagram."

"Content moderators said the world was fine — until we told Meta's PR team about it." Meta has kept secret much of how it plans to enforce its safety protocols in VR, declining to answer detailed questions about them.... Instead, Meta spokesperson Johanna Peace provided BuzzFeed News a short statement: "We're focused on giving people more control over their VR experiences through safety tools like the ability to report and block others. We're also providing developers with further tools to moderate the experiences they create, and we're still exploring the best use of AI for moderation in VR. We remain guided by our Responsible Innovation Principles to ensure privacy, security and safety are built into these experiences from the start...." We went back and asked again for Meta to consider our questions. The company declined.

So, to find out what we could on our own, we strapped on some Oculus headsets, opened Horizon Worlds, and ran a rudimentary experiment. In a matter of hours, we built a private Horizon World festooned with massive misinformation slogans.... We called the world "The Qniverse," and we gave it a soundtrack: an endless loop of Infowars founder Alex Jones calling Joe Biden a pedophile and claiming the election was rigged by reptilian overlords. We filled the skies with words and phrases that Meta has explicitly promised to remove from Facebook and Instagram... Time and time again, Meta has removed and taken action on pages and groups, even private ones, that use these phrases....

We kept the world "unpublished" — i.e., invitation only — to prevent unsuspecting users from happening upon it, and to mimic the way some Meta users seeking to share misinformation might actually do so: in private, invitation-only spaces. The purpose of our test was to assess whether the content moderation systems that operate on Facebook and Instagram also operate on Horizon.

At least in our case, it appears they did not....

Using Horizon's user reporting function, a BuzzFeed News employee with access to the world used his own name and a linked Facebook account to flag the world to Meta. After more than 48 hours and no action, the employee reported the world again, followed quickly by another report from a different BuzzFeed News user with access to the world who also used her real name, which was linked to her Facebook and Oculus profiles. Roughly four hours after the third report was filed, the employee who submitted it received a response from Meta: "Our trained safety specialist reviewed your report and determined that the content in the Qniverse doesn't violate our Content in VR Policy." Six hours after that, the original reporter received the same message....

We went to Meta's comms department, a channel not available to ordinary people. We asked about its content moderators' decisions: How could a world that shares misinformation that Meta has removed from its other platforms, under the same Community Guidelines, not violate Horizon's policies?

The following afternoon, the experimental world disappeared. The company had reversed its original ruling....
The article pinpoints the dilemma Meta is facing at this virtual crossroads. If users congregate to share harmful misinformation, "Without recording everything users say in VR, how can Meta know whether such a situation is happening? But recording everything users say and do, even in private groups, raises stark privacy questions." Yet the article also remembers what Mark Zuckerberg promised the day he'd announced the company's rebranding to Meta.

"Facebook said it would be different this time."
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'Meta Wouldn't Tell Us How It Enforces Its Rules In VR, So We Ran A Test' More

'Meta Wouldn't Tell Us How It Enforces Its Rules In VR, So We Ran A Test'

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  • So... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@[ ]oo.com ['yah' in gap]> on Sunday February 13, 2022 @02:20PM (#62264187) Homepage Journal

    They enforce the rules when there's a threat of seriously bad PR and otherwise deny the rules exist.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fazig ( 2909523 )
      Business as usual these days.
      As long as complaints from a small number of customers can be dismissed as "Karens", hardly anyone among such large corporations gives a shit unless there's potential for actual PR damage.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ls671 ( 1122017 )

        Hmm... I think PR damages are already present and done with this entity :)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by fazig ( 2909523 )
          With BuzzFeed being behind it, sure. That's a 'customer' that can potentially raise a lot of stink.

          But don't expect them to act the same if RandomInternetUser1234567 reports it on their own. So you more or less would have to get some larger group behind it to achieve something.
          Which is something I totally agree with as being a necessity in the free market, but unfortunately it's pretty easy to rile up some of the very "special" people by branding such free market forces as "cancel culture".
          • More in general.

            What does Meta care about content IF...the group in question is private and "invite only" as this test group was.

            It would seem that they should only really be concerned with content being open to the public?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by fazig ( 2909523 )
              They should only be concerned with public stuff, agreed.
              But if their rules state that they apply to everything, then you ought to be able to hold them accountable for arbitrary enforcement of those rules. Otherwise they should perhaps consider to change the rules.
    • I think a lot of people are under the misguided opinion they are a customer when they log into these free products. You are actually the product... They will only selectively "enforce" rules based on what they think you want to see so that you will stay "engaged" (logged in). So if you want to see all the weird crap these idiots masquerading as journalists did, they will only allow it for people where it keeps them engaged...
      • Exactly - this is the best part on this topic. The the product seems free, the YOU are the product...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ksevio ( 865461 )

        That's only true if you only consider customers those who pay with money. It's more accurate to say that if you're not paying with money, you're paying in something else like information or screen real-estate. Meta needs to make sure all their customers are happy including those that aren't paying in money or they'll lose the ones that ARE paying in money

    • To be fair, they do enforce the rules exceedingly literally for minority and LBGTQ groups. White nationalist groups are the ones with rules only when it becomes a PR problem

      • Examples please, better still an impartial study, as I am not a member of either I have no way to judge the validity of that statement.

    • Sounds like perfectly normal business/politics [brennancenter.org]

    • I like your cynical take, but you forgot to mention the underlying security-through-obscurity model. Per my revised Subject, it only leads to race conditions as the abusers figure out the "hidden" rules and abuse them more.

    • VR is still a niche product compared against smartphone/tablet/PC ownership. It’s entirely possible that Facebook really doesn’t see “Q-niverses” as a problem yet, because they’d receive very little exposure. Most people who are trying to spread their propaganda attempt to do so on platforms with a wide audience, not an audience that’s limited to “only people who own Facebook’s VR goggles.”

      The idea that everyone will eventually be in the metaverse is a

      • 3Dtv failed because it sucked. It worked, but it sucked. Half the resolution, half the brightness,
        fussy content acquisition, additional purchase of glasses in addition to the tv. Unsatisfying.

        The Quest 2 face hugger isn't there yet, but a magic leap compared to a years ago.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jd ( 1658 )

        Well, yeah, but companies don't often have a good grasp of how significant a new product is.

        Microsoft didn't have a working TCP/IP stack until the late 90s (mid 90s, everyone used the Trumpet TCP/IP stack) and was still pushing the Microsoft network as if it was a meaningful competitor.

        Sinclair, with the Sinclair QL, announced that nobody needed 32-bit processors, that an 8 bit processor was sufficient. They used the 1970s 68008 because they didn't want to build a substantial computer but wanted to be able

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      They actively court extremists and extreme content. It gets clicks.

    • They publish their rules [fb.com] and continually bring them up in public. They don't deny the rules exist, they just deny the rules apply to all users.

      Usually this denial is done via a private message, like it played out in the article. Although they did, during the Trump years, add a clause in the Community Guidelines about "world leaders" being exempt from the rules. Maybe it's still there.

    • shall be the whole of the law.

      We are all citizens of Eumeswil.

    • They enforce the rules when there's a threat of seriously bad PR and otherwise deny the rules exist.

      This is exactly the truth.

      I've reported holocaust denial posts and comments numerous times, and 100% of the time I've received a message the content "did not violate [their] community standards."

      I actually don't even believe they have a moderation system. I think they have a bot that allows all content after a random amount of time, and then a separate PR department that removes content that is getting attention in the press.

  • Well, no surprise really. VR of this type is not even beginning to be ready and automated content scanning (what, you though a _human_ would look without some alert from a script?) obviously does not work.

  • It was a private space (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why should Facebook be peeking at it? That's what the definition of private is.

    • Re:It was a private space (Score:4, Insightful)

      by GrumpySteen ( 1250194 ) on Sunday February 13, 2022 @03:53PM (#62264435)

      Facebook should be "peeking at it" because it was repeatedly reported for violating their content policies.

      You want privacy from Facebook? Doesn't use their services.

      • You are right, we should let Microsoft read our private data and restrict usage of their os when others report you about violating their tos.. let’s first start with email or any form of communication if it’s used for anything that a minority of users decide on is questionable.. send that conspiracy theory on or build a church of satan site.. strip them of the technology they use.. would have been great to use in the 90s, no violent video games , gay stuff or rock music if tripper gore was in ch

    • An invitation only online space does not equal private.

      In many social networks and communication apps 'invitation only' areas are where the radicalization happens.

  • There's a bigger dilemma for "Meta"... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bb_matt ( 5705262 ) on Sunday February 13, 2022 @02:30PM (#62264221)

    ... that they are losing eyeballs at an alarming rate.

    In terms of demographics, it has become the realm of older people, simple as that - as soon as "your gran" was on the platform, it was no longer "cool".
    Younger people have left in their droves - it's considered somewhat of a joke, like using email - and it's so totally obvious why.

    If your Mom and Dad and Gran are on Facebook, hell, you don't want to be there as a teenager or even a young adult.

    "Meta" is going to fix absolutely nothing, they aren't going to get a younger demographic flooding back, with headsets strapped to their faces and they aren't going to get an older demographic still using facebook strapping headsets to their faces either.

    It's a dead duck, a slow death into irrelevance - just like geocities, or MySpace - nothing "zuck" can do now, no matter how desperately he tries, is going to change the outcome.

    Meta is going to fail, massively.

    I won't even bother with the popcorn, as I won't even watch - it's going to play out very slowly.

    • Re:There's a bigger dilemma for "Meta"... (Score:5, Informative)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Sunday February 13, 2022 @02:58PM (#62264299)

      Being old myself, at one point I asked some of my younger nieces and nephews about this - as well as asking my daughter, although she's technically an adult. To a person all say they are "sort of" still on Facebook, but mainly to interact with older family members such as their grandmas. Facebook is not where they interact with their peers.

      So whatever reports show young people fleeing Facebook, it's worth noting that the "problem" is likely even worse than it appears - a significant number of the young people who still have Facebook accounts are probably not using it for much.

      • My grand-daughters aren't on FB, yet, because they're "too young." Though the older one, at 16, I'd figure was old enough. If we want to keep in touch, we just text them. And, since they live far enough away that we can't visit them frequently, we regularly FaceTime. By the time their parents figure they're old enough to join FB, if they want, they probably won't. I don't know what they use among their peers. I know one tries to use TikTok, but she keeps getting her devices taken as punishment because

      • ...but so long as a young person checks in with their grandparents at least once a month, Facebook count them as an "active user". They're not really contributing to the site, they're not clicking ads, they're not "consuming" content - but they're still considered an "active user". I don't know for sure, but they probably don't even have to log on to be considered "active" - possibly just deleting a phone notification, or maybe even viewing non-FB sites with the FB trackers on (whilst still logged on) is en

    • So are you going to short their stock?

    • That plus it's Lame.

      Inexcusably Lame.

      Wallowing in Lameness.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • ...it violates the rights of the hearer as well as the speaker. -F. Douglass

    When did this notion that others are responsible to filter what I get to hear become popular?

    Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dryeo ( 100693 )

      Around 1930 it really took off due to movies becoming talkies. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] This was also the time the government started heavily regulating what you could put in your body and even what plants you could grow.
      For speech, while the government has always regulated it, the Hayes code was a good example of how the threat of government censorship was enough for certain industries to self censor, though the threats of the religious nut jobs helped.

  • You WANT to be censored by a soulless corporation?

  • So what the people who put this on are saying is that they want Meta to police people’s virtual worlds to some sort of community standards. Okay, let’s take this several steps further. It would be one thing people created an orgy palace where virtual demons where raping and mutilating virtual children. Or they wanted to host an old fashioned slave auction and lynching. Both would be in poor taste to be sure, however NONE OF IT IS REAL. I do understand though how a publicly held company would pro

  • Huge Companies Are The Problem (Score:3)

    by ranton ( 36917 ) on Sunday February 13, 2022 @02:57PM (#62264293)

    The article pinpoints the dilemma Meta is facing at this virtual crossroads. If users congregate to share harmful misinformation, "Without recording everything users say in VR, how can Meta know whether such a situation is happening? But recording everything users say and do, even in private groups, raises stark privacy questions."

    The article is correct that Facebook as it exists today cannot solve this problem. A company cannot moderate harmful content without recording and storing content. But recording and storing content isn't the core issue. Plenty of companies record and store data, but they don't store enough information about us for it to be a problem. Facebook is large enough where it can find enough information about us to be a problem. The only solution is for Facebook to be much smaller.

    I'm not going to pretend the solution to any of this is simple, but I believe anti-trust laws need to be modernized by recognizing sheer company size is a problem. Today they just focus on whether customer prices increase. If perhaps there was a criteria where any company simply having perhaps a $500 billion market cap is anti-competitive and a threat to privacy, threats such as those posed by Amazon or Facebook to competitiveness and privacy could be reduced.

  • a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

    money's first. always first.

    as @jd said, bad PR will be the only thing to motivate them, but ONLY if that bad PR will impact the bottom line. it's entirely possible that bad PR will actually attract more users and revenue... Remember that facebook is perfectly happy to have 1/2 of meta be nothing but QAnon nutcases if that brings in more money than that same 1/2 not being QAnon nutcases.

    also if anyone says anothing mean about Zuckerberg, expect the hammer to come down

    • a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

      That would be an improvement to Facebook's VR world. At least there would be a reason to go there.

  • You should've asked Facebook. There is no "Meta".

  • ... once again, your complaint is that they don't censor hard enough.

    It must really suck being so afraid that someone is going to say something that you don't like or don't agree with. I mean that sincerely.

  • Fuck their day-one crippled VR space. We only need these fools to manufacture us a high resolution VR headset that we can hack and create our own Meta wherein you can have private spaces where you can do anything you want with consenting people you've invited. Just waiting for Meta to build us an 8k or higher per eye headset that has no gap between pixels and also foveated rendering with eye tracking so it won't need a crazy GPU.

    • I'm not touching Oculus hardware or anything else Meta will put out. Login required and zero privacy. That fancy eye tracking will be useful to see what content you are actually looking at, and that info will be fed back and misused by teh Zuck.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • There's a reason historians say to do so.

    What those in control of whatever platform you are on decide you are not allowed to see is very revealing.

  • If they make it perfectly real, they will need all the institutions of the real world. Police, jails, banks, churches, perhaps weapons and armies. In any event if the so called metaverse becomes compelling, and consequential things can transpire there, it is almost inevitable that they will need police (or an AI equivalent).

  • As a reminder: Hanlon's Razor... (Score:3)

    by david.emery ( 127135 ) on Sunday February 13, 2022 @04:28PM (#62264541)

    "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."

    Given Meta's demonstrated incompetence in other areas (e.g. releasing buggy software), this should not be a surprise.

  • If Meta wants to be one, I am not interested. I am waiting for a classic liberal constitutional Republic simulator with public spaces open to free speech, private spaces where recording is banned, warrants for surveillance, due process for exile and no Zuck as a lifelong monarch making final laws.

  • When individuals started playing with these newfangled microprocessor things, making clever gadgets, writing clever code, sharing all the nifty stuff they were figuring out, the community was a messy collision of rebels and libertarians. If people could figure out ways to "stick it to the man", they did (look up Jobs and Woz and long distance telephone calls...). The attitudes created a tidal wave of innovation, in which everything became obsolete at break-neck speeds.

    Just look at the attitude/assumptions o

    • Indeed. One of the reasons I was attracted to the tech community when I was a teenager was how open minded and freedom oriented people were. It inspired me to learn and grow my computer skills and become a developer. I recall that in the 2000s, even the demosceners became extremely activist for woke ideology, and pretty soon the entire tech world was full of it.

      It's very sad how the world has become a cesspool of fanatism and totalitarianism, and rationality is out the door. Soon I think we will get this so

  • Obvious Troll may have made them ignore it (Score:3)

    by Dusanyu ( 675778 ) on Sunday February 13, 2022 @07:51PM (#62264913)
    looking at what they put up its clear to anyone with good eyes that the Area they created was obvious bait that most people of sane disposition would look at it get a few laughs and go someplace else. Secondly a few controversial one liners do not a threat make the whole thing could be argued as being a could be a "Art Installation"
  • The Metaverse is to the Internet what 3D TV is to TV.

    I really have no idea how to build on that. I think it pretty much accurately says it all.
    • Well, 3D tv is a really neat trick.

      I’ve had a 3D tv for quite some time (active shutter glasses) and it’s VERY good — that said, I don’t go to 3D movies and I’ve watched maybe 4 movies this way at home

      Still, I’m not too heavily invested in it and it’s a very nice TV otherwise.

      I would call non-neural link VR closer to an 8-track
  • Only one side is mad about what others do behind closed doors⦠of invitation only worlds. If itâ(TM)s not public then whatâ(TM)s the problem
  • If you believe this you'll believe anything.
  • Where did all these people come from? The internet was just fine for years with everyone having the ability to express themselves publicly and now these nerds have their diapers in a bunch because someone said a thing in a private group. The last few years the truth changes regularly and this campaign against misinformation is clearly just a witch hunt against anybody aware of how Joe Biden's children turned out.

  • "Without recording everything users say in VR, how can Meta know whether such a situation is happening?"

    The US Post has transported blackmail letters, ransom demands, with or without body parts, exploding letters, Anthrax letters, Bomb parcels for the last 150 years and nobody ever suggested them looking inside every item.

    I guess because it is not possible.

  • This is really quite silly. On the one hand the journalists created a private room, the equivalent of a private Whatsapp/Messenger chat room. But on the other hand they wanted Facebook to shut it down because they broke Facebook's rules government public spaces? If Facebook blocked private rooms, or closely monitored what was said or done in private spaces no doubt these same journalists would complain that the company was being overbearing and invading the privacy of users! It would be interesting to hear

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