Culture, Content and Conduct in XR (Online Safety)
The XR industry is committed to creating engaging virtual experiences that facilitate positive connections between users.
While not all spaces need to appeal to all users, all spaces should have clear expectations that users can rely upon to guide user behavior. The XR Association issued guidance for developers on this topic, the XR Primer 2.0: A Starter Guide for Developers, in December 2019. This set of “best practices” recognizes the important balance between free speech and expression, and shared responsibility to implement mechanisms for communicating with users. XR experiences should encourage positive behaviors, while putting measures in to prevent harm. These reinforcement channels can help foster platform-specific social norms.
The XR community should consider the following:
- Foster social norms and promote transparency and inclusion.
- Clearly communicate conduct policies that keep unsafe, abusive, and harassing conduct out of XR experiences.
- Advise content developers to build and optimize for community safety and keep out harmful or illegal content.