Understanding children’s vulnerabilities in the metaverse: the role of the online community

Recent media coverage on the metaverse has cast doubts on child protection. A BBC News investigation and a Channel 4’s investigative documentary both discovered racist insults, sexual materials and sexual harassment targeting children on VRChat. VRChat is a social virtual reality application in which players can embody user-generated avatars and interact with others through speech and body movement. For www.parenting.digital, Runze Hu discusses what he found about children’s vulnerability in the metaverse after spending a year in the Chinese-speaking VRChat community conducting participant observation and interviews as part of his doctoral research. He argues that media reports of the metaverse overlook the complexity of community norms and minors’ position in it, particularly the structure of these social networks, how situational proprieties are sustained, and who dwells in the metaverse.