Value and virtue in the extended reality (XR) industry
Ben Egliston, Marcus Carter, Kate Euphemia Clark · Information Communication & Society · 2024
It is increasingly common to see policymakers, industry, and regulators calling for governance of the ‘metaverse' – often envisioned as a technological stack supported by extended reality (XR) technology. This article focuses on the governance of XR by one major industrial stakeholder, Meta. We report on a thematic content analysis of partnership initiatives undertaken by Meta's Reality Labs division falling under the company's XR Programs and Research Fund (XPRF) – a US$50M scheme beginning in September 2021 (and ending September 2023), funding academic, industrial, and policy partnerships to ensure XR is 'developed responsibly'. We show that partnerships under the XRPRF are scoped predominantly around the prevention of social harm in XR (such as gender-based harassment and protecting children in VR) and promoting equity in XR software production, emphasizing diversity in geography and identity. These initiatives are framed as both socially and economically beneficial. We also examine the underlying political and economic interests guiding these partnership efforts – asking who really stands to benefit, and why. While we take a critical perspective to Meta's XRPRF, we believe things to be more complicated than beneficiaries of industry funding simply ‘selling out' or Meta exerting top-down power (by ‘buying’ research or policy influence aligned with their business interests). Rather, we argue that the XRPRF allows Meta to shape the contours of conversation and critique about where the harms in this emerging suite of technology are concentrated.