Facebook: Zuckerberg wants to create an online parallel world

Mark Zuckerberg is obviously like most of us who have been online for a long time: He is too old for Facebook. At least that’s the impression the 37-year-old gives in his latest presentation. One is actually “not a social media company”, but “one connects people via technology” and it is time for a new chapter.

But instead of simply turning his back on the platform, Zuckerberg wants to reinvent it: his parent company is now called “Meta” and wants to focus on a “Metaverse” in the future. In 10 to 15 years, the Group’s core business should no longer be social media. 10,000 new jobs have already been created for this.

Zuckerberg wants to combine virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) and thus create a digital space where avatars interact with each other. It is not just about a leisure activity, job and social life should also take place there.

Exactly what authors like Ernest Cline in “Ready Player One” or Neal Stephenson warn against with “Snow Crash”. In both dystopias, the rise of an online parallel society goes hand in hand with the demise of the real world: people only want to spend time in the metaverse and therefore lose interest in the reality outside.

Zuckerberg assures us, however, that it is not about the fact that mankind is even more online and spends all of its time there. The online experience should simply be “more intense and easier to experience”.

To achieve this, the company has invested heavily in hardware in recent years: Facebook bought Oculus, a VR specialist, in 2014, and new user interfaces are being worked on in the Facebook Reality Lab. In the medium term, VR glasses and motion sensors will replace the keyboard and screen.

However, the idea for this is not new and could have been technically implemented ten years ago. “Second Life” created something like a metaverse between 2004 and 2009. Initially cheered and advertised by companies as the “advertising market of the future”, the project quickly went downhill.

Ironically, it was then the rise of social media that stole users from the last “real” metaverse. Meeting online was suddenly a lot easier for the average user on Facebook. It’s a shame about the many creative minds who created a lively artist and music scene out of nowhere online.

Another problem: So far, such “free space” on the Internet has always strongly attracted people who otherwise cannot find a place for their needs. Under the guise of this “freedom”, they then live out their world views and behavior patterns that are not suitable for society. In the end, someone still has to play the moral police.

In addition to Second Life, examples of this are information platforms such as Reddit or Pinterest. Anyone who promised great freedom at the beginning had to take action against questionable pornography and opinion contributions a little later with updated terms of use.

Zuckerberg is well aware of this problem. In the Metaverse, governments, tech companies but also science and human rights should «define rules» from the start. How “free” the whole thing is then remains to be seen.