Are We Ready For The Metaverse?

• Published date: 02 August 2022
• Subject Matter: Corporate/Commercial Law, Employment and HR, Discrimination, Disability & Sexual Harassment, Health & Safety, Employee Rights/ Labour Relations, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
• Law Firm: lus Laboris
• Author: Mr Tarun Tawakley (Lewis Silkin LLP) and Gemma Taylor (Lewis Silkin)

The metaverse and virtual reality offer opportunities but look set to throw up new employment issues around diversity, misconduct and more. Are we ready?

There are many visions of the metaverse, but essentially, it is a virtual world, involving virtual reality, where you can meet and interact with other people. For many employers, the first glimpse of the metaverse may come (very soon) from using virtual reality systems in conferences and events. Microsoft has said it will be adding 3D virtual avatars and environments to Teams this year. Eventually, employees may spend more time doing their jobs in a virtual world. The metaverse offers many benefits, for example the ability to work from home but feel much more connected with your colleagues, but it will also throw up a range of new employment law issues.

Diversity, inclusion and avatar design

You need an online representation or avatar to take part in the metaverse. In the online gaming world, choosing a character or avatar is mainly about digital escapism. Fortnite skins include fish, aliens and impossibly cool characters. None of them is obviously pregnant or disabled. There is much discussion about whether characters are sufficiently diverse and whether female characters are over-sexualised, with games developers acknowledging the need to work on confronting these issues.

When the metaverse reaches workplaces and professional environments, it seems more likely that people will choose more photoreal avatars - ones that look like them - or, at least, how they perceive themselves to be (a trend which is already visible in how people craft memojis). Our choice of avatars, however, may generate some issues around diversity and inclusion:

Potential for offence

An early issue for HR professionals and employment lawyers could be jokes or offensive comments about people's choice of avatar. Some light-hearted banter can be expected, but this could potentially deteriorate into harassment. Remember the row about sexist comments on LinkedIn pictures? There could also be disputes about avatars which deliberatively poke fun at others (for example an avatar which looks like a public persona but with certain traits emphasised). Existing UK employment laws would allow employers to discipline employees for inappropriate behaviour, although HR may need to develop and enforce guidelines.

Avatar styling

When designing our avatars, our natural instinct is surely going to be to pick 'improved' versions of ourselves. There is...