Not long ago, on a virtual reality platform, a user said that she was harassed by other players through actions and words. This incident also made people pay attention to the issue of personality protection in the virtual world.
Personality itself is produced in people's life practice and has dual attributes of nature and society. It is precisely because of this characteristic of personality that it has been difficult for it to be separated from the living space for a long time, and the virtual digital space is such an existence that is separated from the real life scene, which also makes the rights and protection of personality difficult. manifested in the virtual world.
With the continuous advancement of digital technology, a metaverse that creates a more realistic virtual space has begun to open the door to us. At the same time, personality has become more prominent with the integration of real life and the virtual world.
Due to the difference between the virtual world and the real world, the personality also has a certain degree of alienation, which is mainly manifested in two aspects: symbolization and propertyization.
symbolic personality
Symbolization means that in the virtual space of the Metaverse, the rights to life, body, name, portrait, reputation, and privacy contained in personality are symbolized by machine codes. To put it simply, the metaverse is still essentially composed of codes, and the rights possessed by personality are identified and defined through various symbols.
Symbolization makes the personality virtual, enabling it to be manifested in the Metaverse. But it is also symbolization that makes the infringement of rights such as reputation rights and portrait rights become unclear, and it is also unclear whether the consequences can be recognized as infringements on real people.
property personality
Another distinctive feature of the Metaverse is the anthropomorphism as part of our digital possessions. With the symbolization of personality elements, under the unique data assetization in the Metaverse, personality has also become a brand new property, and users can benefit from it.
Propertyization is an inevitable trend towards industrialization in the Metaverse. Since personality is individual and property is general, in the digital world, it is necessary to eliminate individuality and establish a mechanism with universal recognition. Metaverse uses encryption technology, digital signatures and other means to complete this process, enabling it to be transformed into goods or services, thereby bringing material benefits to users.
Legal Identification of Personality in the Metaverse
We can see from the above that the personality in the virtual world is very different from the reality. Therefore, we need to legally identify it from a new perspective in order to better protect our personality rights.
Specifically, we need to be able to clarify the subject and form of personality interests. Whether the subject of determining personality interests presents a dual state of separation of virtuality and reality. At the same time, it is also necessary to determine whether the same legal judgment standards can be used for personality in the real and virtual worlds.
In addition, the behavior of personality violation in the virtual space should also be clarified. Clarify the infringement, the consequences of the infringement, and the subjective elements of the offender, so as to better judge the incident of personality violation.