Meta adds ‘personal boundaries’ to Horizon Worlds and Venues to fight harassment

Meta is rolling out a feature called Personal Boundary in its Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues virtual reality spaces to combat harassment. Each avatar will have a bubble with a radius of two virtual feet, so they won’t be able to come within around four feet of each other.

Meta

If someone tries to move into your personal space, their forward motion will halt when they get too close. However, Meta told The Verge that avatars will still be able to move past each other, so users won’t get trapped in a corner or doorway.

The Personal Boundary feature, which users won’t be able to disable, builds on previous measures Meta added to tackle harassment, such as making an avatar’s hands vanish when they enter someone else’s personal space. Shortly before Meta opened Horizon Worlds to everyone aged 18 or older in the US and Canada in December, a beta tester said her avatar was groped by a stranger.

Eventually, you may be able to change the radius of your Personal Boundary. Users can still high-five and fist bump other avatars, but they need to extend their arms to do so.

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared on Engadget.