Imagine what the world would look like if 17 years ago philanthropy had intervened just as Facebook was getting off the ground. Instead of becoming an unregulated morass of disinformation, discord, and dissent, it might have lived up to its promise as a global community where democratic ideals and civic discourse flourish.
Now, philanthropy has a second chance. With Facebook’s recent announcement that it is plunging into the metaverse, including changing its parent name to Meta, grant makers have an opportunity to do it right this time.
That should start with understanding what the metaverse is and why it has the potential to create a more just and equitable world — or its dystopian opposite. Science-fiction writer Neal Stephenson coined the term in his 1992 novel Snow Crash to convey a reality where people create avatars of themselves to explore virtual worlds. The vision of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and other tech leaders is much the same — rather than clicking on links to get information on the internet, people would send their avatars on virtual explorations.
Why does any of this matter to philanthropy? Because creating a fair and democratic metaverse will require a multipronged approach from civil society, academe, and government. Philanthropy will have a central role, including bringing together experts to develop sound practices, educating grantees and donors, advocating for regulatory policies, and setting the metaverse on a path that will benefit future generations.
To help grant makers take their first steps into the metaverse, here are the key next steps. If approached thoughtfully and strategically, each has the potential to lift up the metaverse as a place where diverse voices are heard, problems are resolved with empathy and understanding, and democracy thrives.
Develop principles and practices to guide civic discourse. Facebook lost its footing primarily because of misguided, misaligned, or just missing norms. By contrast, a metaverse equipped with democratic rules and principles would create unique opportunities for civic discourse and problem solving. Imagine, for instance, public forums where town residents can walk virtually through public spaces that are being developed in their communities and offer real-time input and suggestions.
Philanthropy has a key role to play in bringing together experts, including tech leaders, software engineers, researchers, and advocates to come up with a set of principles that could then be fed to policy makers. These guidelines might focus on issues such as programmer bias that could result in virtual worlds that fail to reflect the interests, needs, and concerns of traditionally marginalized groups. Other areas of focus could include protecting the rights of minors and ensuring that hate, violence, and misogyny don’t become mainstays of the metaverse as they have on the internet. Early signs of such problems are already cropping up in the metaverse, including groping incidences involving gaming avatars.
A good model for developing useful guidelines is the Aspen Institute’s Commission on Information Disorder, which brought together participants from academe, government, philanthropy, and civil society to issue recommendations on combating disinformation, including increasing transparency from social-media companies and developing digital communications tools that build empathy and encourage trust.
Get up to speed on technology innovations — and make sure donors and grantees do the same. In a now infamous 2018 hearing on regulating Facebook, congressional lawmakers who questioned Zuckerberg appeared uninformed about the tech giant’s most basic operations and ill equipped to design policy responses to complex regulatory questions involving the company. That can’t happen again.
Those who influence policy, including foundation leaders and staff, should stay abreast of advances in technology and its impact on society. They should read Ready Player One, the science-fiction novel that imagines a semi-dystopian virtual future. They should get acquainted with Oculus VR, the virtual reality headset system that is now owned by Facebook and is the primary equipment available for engaging with the metaverse. And they should keep close tabs on who is investing in the metaverse — and why.
Grantees and foundation program officers focused on a range of issues, including climate change, democracy, racial justice, education, and health, should be brought together for hands-on training sessions that use virtual reality to demonstrate how their work might interact with the metaverse. These gatherings should highlight the potential for positive impact, including using digital tools for more inclusive and equitable democratic engagement, as well as the possible harms. Those harms include deepening the spread of misinformation through technologies that could make conspiracy theories appear more real and convincing than what is available on the internet today. Bad actors, for instance, could create and control three-dimensional likenesses of political leaders spewing harmful disinformation and lies in their own voices.
Advocate for a balanced regulatory approach to the metaverse — and the larger tech industry. Since Zuckerberg’s 2018 testimony before Congress, government leaders have become more knowledgeable and responsive to changes in technology. For example, a credible House Judiciary investigation is looking into anticompetitive practices in the tech sector; the Federal Trade Commission has initiated promising enforcement efforts to ensure tech companies obey antitrust laws; and last month, a Senate subcommittee held a substantive hearing on the effects of social media on young people, questioning the head of Instagram.
All this activity provides an opening for developing policy solutions that address the big ethical questions surrounding the metaverse and its associated technologies. Philanthropists should work with governments to seize this opportunity and advocate for policies that make privacy and public protections a priority in the creation of this new world, while avoiding overregulation that stymies innovation.
Encourage long-term thinking focused on the needs of future generations. The metaverse has the potential to become an immersive space where the kind of civic and communal spirit we’ve seen during the pandemic thrives. It could amplify traditionally marginalized voices, such as young people of color, recent immigrants, those who haven’t gone to college, and the formerly incarcerated. It could encourage greater empathy by allowing people to engage deeply with those they disagree with and whose life experiences are significantly different than their own.
Perhaps most remarkably, the metaverse has the power to more vividly and tangibly represent the needs of future unborn generations — potentially helping to combat the short-term thinking that makes tackling issues like climate change so challenging. All this is possible through technologies that allow people to take on and engage with different personas and perspectives, enabling residents of a town, city, or even nation to think through the impact of their decisions on those living in the distant future.
Real-world efforts of this kind are already underway and could be the basis of philanthropic-backed projects in the metaverse. For example, as part of the Future Design movement in Japan, residents in communities across the country are invited to public meetings and asked to make recommendations on a range of policy issues. Half are asked to represent the perspective of current residents, and half are asked to represent the perspective of residents from 2060. The future-oriented groups consistently proposed more progressive, equitable, and sustainable policies that would produce long-term benefits for the town, while those playing the part of current residents responded almost entirely to present-day needs.
Fund innovative projects that put civic issues at the heart of the metaverse. The pandemic has provided a glimpse at how technology can be used in positive and democratic ways. The number of mutual aid networks increased sharply by deploying online tools to raise funds and coordinate logistics to help people in need. Public libraries expanded their Wi-Fi hotspots to help those seeking better internet connections for school and jobs and lent iPads to local hospitals and nursing homes so isolated patients could communicate with loved ones and doctors.
In recent years, efforts to use digital tools for democratic engagement have also grown in popularity. Cities and organizations across the globe use an open-source platform for participatory democracy called Decidim to bring diverse and often unheard voices into the policy decision-making process.
With philanthropic support, efforts like these could take off in the metaverse. This is an area where donor collaboratives could be particularly powerful, ensuring that public-interest spaces within the metaverse enhance public welfare. One model is the Reimagining the Civic Commons donor collaborative, which funds innovative approaches to physical public spaces that encourage civic engagement, diversity, and environmental sustainability.
Much of the metaverse’s potential may be difficult to envision today. But we know one thing for sure — the metaverse is coming, and philanthropic leaders need to open their eyes to its promise and possible pitfalls. In Snow Crash, the novel that introduced readers to the metaverse, the character Raven puts it this way: “The world is full of things more powerful than us. But if you know how to catch a ride, you can go places.”
