Stuff

    Subscribe to our newsletter

    What's Hot
    Vodacom

    Vodacom launches its ‘Good as New’ refurbished iPhone range

    July 6, 2022
    VS Gaming Weekly

    South African esports gets its own TV show – This is VS Gaming Weekly

    July 6, 2022
    Shanghai

    Shanghai hack sees over 23TB of personal information up for sale

    July 6, 2022
    Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube SoundCloud
    Trending
    • Vodacom launches its ‘Good as New’ refurbished iPhone range
    • South African esports gets its own TV show – This is VS Gaming Weekly
    • Shanghai hack sees over 23TB of personal information up for sale
    • How Discovery Insure is making people better drivers and saving lives – T2S2
    • Glance is here to absolutely ruin your day. And your lock-screen
    • This is what a 3D-printed lunar base built by autonomous robots might look like
    • Nigeria’s latest lithium find: some key questions answered
    • Asus ROG Phone 6 and 6 Pro models announced, will land in SA (eventually)
    Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube
    Stuff Stuff
    • News
      • App News
      • Business News
      • Camera News
      • Gaming News
      • Headphone News
      • Industry News
      • Internet News
      • Laptops News
      • Motoring News
      • Other Tech News
      • Phone News
      • Tablet News
      • Technology News
      • TV News
      • Wearables News
    • Reviews
      • Camera Reviews
      • Car Reviews
      • Featured Reviews
      • Game Reviews
      • Headphone Reviews
      • Laptop Reviews
      • Other Tech Reviews
      • Phone Reviews
      • Tablet Reviews
      • Wearables Reviews
    • Columns
    • Stuff Guides
    • Podcasts & Videos
      • Videos
      • Stuffed
      • Stuffing Around
      • Tech Byte
      • T2S2
    • Win
    • Subscribe
      • Print
      • Digital
        • Google Play
        • iTunes
        • Download
        • Zinio
    • Stuff Shop
      • Shop Now
      • My Account
      • Downloads
    • Contact Us
      • Get In Touch
      • Advertise
    0 Shopping Cart
    Stuff
    Home » News » ‘Virtual influencers’ are here, but should Meta really be setting the ethical ground rules?
    Industry News

    ‘Virtual influencers’ are here, but should Meta really be setting the ethical ground rules?

    The ConversationBy The ConversationFebruary 7, 2022Updated:February 6, 2022No Comments5 Mins Read
    Metaverse
    Share
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Email

    Earlier this month, Meta announced it is working on a set of ethical guidelines for “virtual influencers” – animated, typically computer-generated, characters designed to attract attention on social media.

    When Facebook renamed itself Meta late last year, it heralded a pivot towards the “metaverse” – where virtual influencers will presumably one day roam in their thousands.

    Even Meta admits the metaverse doesn’t really exist yet. The building blocks of a persistent, immersive virtual reality for everything from business to play are yet to be fully assembled. But virtual influencers are already online, and are surprisingly convincing.




    Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse announcement. 30 October 2021.

    But given its recent history, is Meta (née Facebook) really the right company to be setting the ethical standards for virtual influencers and the metaverse more broadly?

    Who (or what) are virtual influencers?

    Meta’s announcement notes the “rising phenomenon” of synthetic media – an umbrella term for images, video, voice or text generated by computerised technology, typically using artificial intelligence (AI) or automation.

    Many virtual influencers incorporate elements of synthetic media in their design, ranging from completely digitally rendered bodies, to human models that are digitally masked with characters’ facial features.




    A Topography of Virtual Influencers by Rachel Berryman, Crystal Abidin, and Tama Leaver (October 2021).

    At both ends of the scale, this process still relies heavily on human labour and input, from art direction for photo shoots to writing captions for social media. Like Meta’s vision of the metaverse, influencers that are entirely generated and powered by AI are a largely futuristic fantasy.

    But even in their current form, virtual influencers are of serious value to Meta, both as attractions for their existing platforms and as avatars of the metaverse.

    Interest in virtual influencers has rapidly expanded over the past five years, attracting huge audiences on social media and partnerships with major brands, including Audi, Bose, Calvin Klein, Samsung, and Chinese e-commerce platform TMall.

    A competitive industry specialising in the production, management and promotion of virtual influencers has already sprung up, although it remains largely unregulated.

    So far, India is the only country to address virtual influencers in national advertising standards, requiring brands “disclose to consumers that they are not interacting with a real human being” when posting sponsored content.

    Ethical guidelines

    There is an urgent need for ethical guidelines, both to help producers and their brand partners navigate this new terrain, and more importantly to help users understand the content they’re engaging with.

    Meta has warned that “synthetic media has the potential for both good and harm”, listing “representation and cultural appropriation” as specific issues of concern.

    Indeed, despite their short lifespan, virtual influencers already have a history of overt racialisation and misrepresentation, raising ethical questions for producers who create digital characters with different demographic characteristics from their own.

    But it’s far from clear whether Meta’s proposed guidelines will adequately address these questions.


    Read more: What is the metaverse? A high-tech plan to Facebookify the world


    Becky Owen, head of creator innovation and solutions at Meta Creative Shop, said the planned ethical framework “will help our brand partners and VI creators explore what’s possible, likely and desirable, and what’s not”.

    This seeming emphasis on technological possibilities and brand partners’ desires leads to an inevitable impression that Meta is once again conflating commercial potential with ethical practice.

    By its own count, Meta’s platforms already host more than 200 virtual influencers. But virtual influencers exist elsewhere too: they do viral dance challenges on TikTok, upload vlogs to YouTube, and post life updates on Sina Weibo. They appear “offline” at malls in Beijing and Singapore, on 3D billboards in Tokyo, and star in television commercials.




    Virtual influencer Rozy stars in a commercial for Shinhan life insurance.

    Gamekeeper, or poacher?

    This brings us back to the question of whether Meta is the right company to set the ground rules for this emerging space.

    The company’s history is tarred by unethical behaviour, from Facebook’s questionable beginnings in Mark Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room (as depicted in The Social Network) to large-scale privacy failings demonstrated in the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

    In February 2021 Facebook showed how far it was willing to go to defend its interests, when it briefly banned all news content on Facebook in Australia to force the federal government to water down the Australian News Media Bargaining Code.


    Read more: Facebook has pulled the trigger on news content — and possibly shot itself in the foot


    Last year also saw former Facebook executive Frances Haugen very publicly turn whistleblower, sharing a trove of internal documents with journalists and politicians.

    These so-called “Facebook Papers” raised numerous concerns about the company’s conduct and ethics, including the revelation that Facebook’s own internal research showed Instagram can harm young people’s mental health, even leading to suicide.

    Today, Meta is fighting US antitrust litigation that aims to restrain the company’s monopoly by potentially compelling it to sell key acquisitions including Instagram and WhatsApp.

    Meanwhile, Meta is scrambling to integrate its messaging service across all three apps, effectively making them different interfaces for a shared back end that Meta will doubtless argue cannot feasibly be separated, no matter the outcomes of the current litigation.

    Given this back story, Meta seems far from the ideal choice as ethical guardian of the metaverse.

    The already extensive distribution of virtual influencers across platforms and markets highlights the need for ethical guidelines that go beyond the interests of one company – especially a company that stands to gain so much from the impending spectacle.

      1. Tama Leaver, Professor of Internet Studies, Curtin University
      2. Rachel Berryman, PhD Candidate in Internet Studies, Curtin University
    • This article first appeared on The Conversation

    augmented reality avatars CGI influencers Meta metaverse social media virtual reality
    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit Tumblr Email
    The Conversation

      Related Posts

      Vodacom

      Vodacom launches its ‘Good as New’ refurbished iPhone range

      July 6, 2022
      VS Gaming Weekly

      South African esports gets its own TV show – This is VS Gaming Weekly

      July 6, 2022
      Shanghai

      Shanghai hack sees over 23TB of personal information up for sale

      July 6, 2022

      Leave A Reply Cancel Reply

      In The Mag
      Stuff June-July 2022 Latest Issue

      In This Issue – The Outdoors (June-July 2022) Issue

      By Brett VenterMay 30, 20221

      Once again, we are asking you to check out a new issue of Stuff Magazine.…

      2021 Wish List
      wish list Stuff Wish List 2021

      Stuff Wish List: for the tech impaired

      By Duncan PikeDecember 22, 20210

      Are you from the time before being glued to a smartphone was considered normal? Here’s…

      Wishlist DIY Stuff tech

      Stuff Wish List: for the DIY Diehard

      December 21, 2021
      Wish List Gearhead

      Stuff Wish List: For the petrol-soaked gearhead

      December 20, 2021
      outsiders

      Stuff Wish List: for the Outsiders

      December 17, 2021

      Latest Video

      Sonos

      SONOS Roam SL unboxing by Toby Shapshak

      March 30, 2022
      Mini Cooper

      The Mini Cooper SE Electric with Toby Shapshak

      March 18, 2022
      MSI Crosshair 15 Rainbox Six Extraction Edition unboxing

      MSI Crosshair 15 Rainbox Six Extraction Edition unboxing

      March 16, 2022
      Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra Unboxing

      Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra unboxing with Toby Shapshak

      March 16, 2022
      Contact

      South Africa's Consumer Tech News Hub

      General: [email protected]
      Subscriptions: [email protected] or 087 353 1291
      Editorial: 072 735 2614
      Sales: 083 375 2418

      Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube SoundCloud

      Subscribe to Updates

      • Terms and Conditions
      • Privacy & POPI
      • My account
      © 2022 Stuff Group. Designed by Chronon.

      Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.