About 48 hours before Meta Platforms rolled out its nostalgia-infused Super Bowl ad for the Quest 2 and Horizon Worlds, BuzzFeed published a report on Meta’s latest VR social platform that brings back memories of past moderation struggles.
To test Meta’s moderation of user-made Horizon Worlds content, BuzzFeed set up a world full of QAnon slogans and other conspiracy content that Meta has pledged to ban. Upon an initial review, Meta did not ban the world, failing what should have been an easy test. The incident raises questions about what else might happen as Meta spends billions on luring people into VR and the metaverse. Can it possibly hope to keep up with the moderation challenges?