thread. sharing a recap of the "user data privacy and the metaverse" presentation & discussion I led w/ @ferasity last week, since the content is timely. the original concept evolved around a speculative look at how xr technology's usage could play out during a 2024 us election. https://twitter.com/timstutts/status/1316042526529384449

we quickly shifted course after accepting that an early stage xr metaverse already exists. while pt 1 of the talk would be focused around our previous work in privacy design & compliance for enterprise xr, pt 2 could look towards a near future in consumer xr & user data privacy.

social media app user data can be represented as a growing cone. platform settings hardly discourage what a user places on the other side of the walled garden. in-app interaction design patterns impact the cone in interesting ways. as the cone grows, privacy tends to contract.

hardware devices of today running applications that are free / ad-monetized (often social media or e-commerce related) can be thought of as early metaverse data collectors. the amount of data gathered is vast. some, like cellphones & smart speakers are already operating at scale.

xr hardware and apps of today, like facebook quest 2 + horizon (& dozens of headsets of varying vr/ar/mr functionality w/ their own apps), already operate in a dedicated immersive xr realm, though not a metaverse at scale. fb project aria, apple glass & nueralink may change this.

along with xr hardware and apps, other technological advancements in algorithms (processing), cloud computing & storage (distribution), transmission (bandwidth), etc, will expand the amount of user data collected & shared across a more connected metaverse, for better & worse.

issues of today, including patterns in social media that serve us content to keep us coming back, will eventually manifest themselves as immersive, spatial content. leading up to a 2024 election, we may engage w/ content & entities, while wearing xr goggles out in the metaverse.

the world of 2024 may we one where we see, hear and feel abrasive 'dark patterns' when interacting with content. some may pass right through us subconsciously. as designers of xr content, we must fight for transparent ux design, even if it stands at odds with our business models.

while we continue to envision utopian ideals for an eventual private + social xr metaverse, we must simultaneously maintain focus on the ground-level realities we are facing with early implementations now, some stemming from the ways in which user data is commodified. end thread.