By Elizabeth Culliford and Sheila Dang
(Reuters) -Facebook Inc CEO Mark Zuckerberg said privacy and safety need to be built in to the metaverse, as he opened the company's annual virtual and augmented reality conference on Thursday.
Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) continues to battle criticism over its market power, its content moderation practices and harms linked to its social media platforms.
In the latest controversy, whistleblower and former Facebook employee Frances Haugen https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-sees-safety-cost-whistleblower-says-2021-10-25 leaked documents which she said showed the company chose profit over user safety. Zuckerberg earlier this week said the documents were being used to paint a "false picture."
The metaverse refers broadly to a shared virtual environment which can be accessed by people using different devices. Zuckerberg has increasingly been promoting the idea of Facebook, which has invested heavily in augmented and virtual reality, as a "metaverse" company https://www.reuters.com/technology/facebook-sets-up-new-team-work-metaverse-2021-07-26 rather than a social media one.
The CEO, speaking during the live-streamed Facebook Connect event, gave examples of privacy and safety controls such as the ability to block someone from appearing in your space in the metaverse.