After reports of groping in Horizon, virtual reality spaces created Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook has decided to introduce a personal boundaries feature to help users avoid unwanted interactions.

Horizon Worlds is an online world created by Meta that can be accessed by Oculus VR headsets, where people can meet other VR users and design their own world. Another service, Horizon Venues, allows users to host VR events such as gigs or shows.

Vivek Sharma, vice-president of Horizon, announced the new personal boundaries feature on the Oculus blog on Friday (4 February) after Meta came under fire for the first major report of groping on its metaverse platform.

In late November, a Horizon beta tester reported on a Facebook group for Horizon Worlds that her avatar had been groped by a stranger in the virtual reality world.

“Sexual harassment is no joke on the regular internet, but being in VR adds another layer that makes the event more intense,” she wrote in the post seen by The Verge. “Not only was I groped last night, but there were other people there who supported this behavior which made me feel isolated in the Plaza.”

At the time, Sharma told The Verge that the feedback was helpful because he wanted to make the blocking feature “trivially easy and findable”.

With the new personal boundaries feature, users of Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues will feel an “almost 4-foot distance” between their avatars and others. Meta is trialling the feature, which will apply by default, to see how it affects people’s experiences in the metaverse.

“A personal boundary prevents anyone from invading your avatar’s personal space. If someone tries to enter your personal boundary, the system will halt their forward movement as they reach the boundary. You won’t feel it – there is no haptic feedback,” said Sharma on the blog.

The new feature builds upon a set of existing harassment measures that were already in place, according to Sharma, where “an avatar’s hands would disappear if they encroached upon someone’s personal space”.

Because the metaverse is in its preliminary stages, rules such as this will set behavioural norms in the future. Meta said that it will “explore the possibility” of allowing people to edit the size of their personal boundaries in the future, with added controls and UI changes.

The addition of personal boundaries means that users on VR devices will now have to extend their arms to be able to high-five or fist-bump others in Horizon Worlds or Horizon Venues.

“We believe Personal Boundary is a powerful example of how VR has the potential to help people interact comfortably. It’s an important step, and there’s still much more work to be done,” Sharma added.

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