IT House reported on February 5 that after an incident of female sexual harassment on Meta's Horizon Worlds, the company announced "Personal Boundary", which can be used as a force field around the avatar to prevent others from approaching.
Meta indicates that Personal Boundary is always on by default and cannot be closed. In the future, it will decide whether to add new controls, such as allowing users to customize the size of their Personal Boundary.
Meta officially said: "We believe Personal Boundary is a powerful example of how VR has the potential to help people interact comfortably. This is an important step and there is still a lot of work to be done. We will continue to test and explore new ways to help people feel comfortable in VR. ”
IT House learned that the harassment issue was raised by Nina Jane Patel in a Medium post in December. Patel said that within 60 seconds of entering VR, she was verbally and sexually harassed by 3 to 4 men.
It's worth noting that while Horizon Worlds is cartoonish, the game isn't for kids. Meta makes it clear that only adults are allowed to use the service to help protect children from strangers.