The dark world of the future. At the beginning of the year, a strange thing happened in Britain. On January 5, the British newspaper The Guardian reported that a minor was a victim of gang rape in Metaverse. Allegedly, the minor participated in an online game wearing a virtual reality (VR) headset. And in that game, his digital avatar (an animated version of a person) is gang-raped by the digital avatars of several other participants. But what rape is possible virtually. In fact, Metaverse is a ‘virtual environment’ where you feel like entering a fantasy world rather than just looking at a computer or phone screen. Not physically, but virtually. But there is a real feeling. As a result, even though she was not physically raped, the minor had to face extreme abuse in the world of digital fantasy. As a result, the minor is mentally broken. That is why the police have started an investigation to find out the information of the alleged avatars of other members of that virtual world.
You will say, why give so much importance to something that does not exist in reality. It is foolish to try to match reality with science fiction. But if that fantasy becomes a reality in your life one day? Maybe that question was a bit provocative. Various IT tycoons. Mark Zuckerberg is racing to ‘conquer the Metaverse’ today. Distances across the globe have been bridged through the Internet. If something happens in America, that picture can be seen in Salt Lake momentarily – on a smartphone. The world of information technology wants to go further. Now technology wants to bring the world in front of you. Right at hand. Those who live in the Metaverse can go on virtual tours around the world with their friends, go to concerts, stay in touch, and interact virtually together at various events. It doesn’t matter whether it’s marching or not. This is a world that is completely fake. It’s all eye candy. Metaverse is being created with that urge.
The term ‘Metaverse’ was first coined in 1992 in the science fiction book ‘Snow Crash’ by author Neal Stevenson. Which became popular in 2021, the name of ‘Facebook’ was changed. After putting ‘Meta’. The word metaword is made up of the words ‘meta’ and ‘universe’ and means ‘outside the universe’. In fact, when the Zuckerbergs decided to leave space and create another world within this world, it can be predicted how powerful this new world will become in the future.
Many people want to get lost in this virtual world and forget the reality. Want to get lost in the land of fairy tales. According to a British study, the future generation will spend almost 10 years in the virtual reality metaverse. About 3 hours daily. 21 percent of 5- to 10-year-olds already own a VR headset and are starting to ask for one as a gift for birthdays or Christmas (IET, 2022). But the question is, what will be the rules of the virtual world that can have an effect on emotions, can cause happiness-sadness, joy-pain. In the real world the peace of the same crime varies from country to country. The same thing is the abuse of one country, the bully of another country. The same dress is culture in one country, but counterculture in another country. Any crime that occurs there will be enforced. What will be the solution to the problem of suddenly not being able to distinguish between the real and virtual worlds? How will the crime of the dark world of the real world be controlled in the virtual world? A large section of net experts in our country fear that the metaverse may become a free zone for sex offenders and the government should urgently amend the law to prevent it. According to them, there are many victims of online harassment in India. They can take recourse to any of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 354A, 354D, 499, 507, 508 etc. and Sections 66C, 66D, 66E, 67 and 67A of the Information Technology Act. But in the metaverse it is difficult to determine which laws would punish an avatar for harassment. Because, there is no matter of direct touch and these avatars can be anyone. An adult citizen can also assume the avatar of a child or a woman. Neither organization has a way to verify the identity of an avatar yet. The fear is there.
Fake news is already on the rise. Instantly ‘truth’ is becoming a lie. In the era of ‘post truth’, ‘objective truth’ is no longer valued. At this time, a new false world is being created. The dark world of the future
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