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The Danger of Facebook’s ‘Metaverse’

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Technological advances are the order of the day, both for better and for worse. It doesn’t matter whether it’s social media, Artificial Intelligence (AI), data mining, app development or telecommunications in the broad sense.

It is also true that the magnates of large technology corporations maintain that they “have to change the world” (we already know that when appropriate they are very much oriented on the basis of socialist and “progressive” premises).

This is what this article will be about, about one of the recent ideas that the creator and founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has had. We are talking about the “metaverse”, a kind of synthesis between virtual elements and components of the real world with a touch of “transcendence.”

It is not just an intuitive technological experience

At first glance, one can imagine that Facebook’s “metaverse” is a transformation of virtual communities, as we know them, into virtual reality environments where, for example, our faces, sports scenes and certain dream locations are seen in 3D. In itself, it’s a good idea, which leads to a more intuitive use of technology (aren’t movies that have required the use of special glasses more interesting because they show the graphics in three dimensions?) But the problem, unfortunately, is that the background of Facebook’s umpteenth technological invention is not as simple as one might understandably and totally innocently imagine.

A new artificial worldview

I believe, rather, that one should pay more attention and be cautious about the so-called “metaverse” because it could be a social, cultural and ideological experiment that takes advantage of the high volume of users of Facebook and other networks owned by it such as WhatsApp and Instagram.

Recently, Zuckerberg initiated strategic contacts with several American religious communities, not necessarily Christian, to be able to host functionalities that can edit photos as well as “virtualize the experiences of worship and profession of faith”.

On the other hand, let’s keep in mind that if this social network already violates our privacy and even censors our messages so that they do not question the “official truth”, it plans to go further, monitoring our body movements, what we think and our eye movements.

The political and ideological dynamics of Big Tech

Perhaps some appreciations may denote a “conspiratorial” attitude, but it is not my intention to speculate excessively. Frankly and honestly, the reasons I warn respond to the ideological phenomenon to which Zuckerberg subscribes.

As we know, large technology corporations are more focused on self-interested political prebend than responding to societal needs through the spontaneously ordered dynamics of the marketplace.

By altering the algorithm behind content retrieval (content sampling) and censoring profiles and messages contrary to the “official truth”, these services have become propaganda apparatuses of the Revolution, endorsing the political options that accelerate it.

To give some more concrete examples of messages, let’s remember how everything that questions socialism, gender ideology, environmentalism, multiculturalism and trust in those options that pose a greater threat to the free world is persecuted.

The problem won’t be the network of networks itself

From these columns, I don’t wish to encourage distrust of technology in general or of what we know as the Internet or the network of networks, on which we are increasingly dependent. Rather, I want us to understand that the essence of the Internet is based on dispersion and decentralization. Thus, there are technological concepts such as blockchain, which are the antithesis of political centralism and any other rigid hierarchy.

Whereupon, to conclude, the problem is who is conceiving the metaverse in this sense, not the digitization of social life. Let’s remember that there are technological solutions that do not benefit the establishment, that are more respectful of property, privacy and freedom, such as, for example, the aforementioned Blockchain, certain open source solutions, VPNs and social media and communication services that do not depend on large corporations.

Ángel Manuel García Carmona

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