Goal & Relevance

The goal of this Meet-Up is to bring together researchers, designers, and practitioners to critically examine and propose approaches to harassment prevention in the Metaverse. Through interactive polling, demonstrations of safety
mechanisms, and open discussion, we aim to identify common experiences and perceptions around harassment in social VR platforms, while also exploring the effectiveness and limitations of existing prevention mechanisms.

Building on this discussion, we will then present and discuss our own safety-by-design techniques and tools, ultimately gathering community feedback to refine these approaches and inspire new directions.

Acknowledging that sometimes such discussions can be hard to initiate, this Meet-Up utilizes facilitated dialogue techniques to foster participant engagement
for all activities.

This topic is highly relevant to CHI because it addresses a pressing socio-technical challenge at the intersection of human-computer interaction, ethics, and immersive media. Harassment in the Metaverse is not merely a behavioral issue; it is fundamentally about the design of interactive systems, the shaping of user experience, and the creation of trustworthy digital spaces. By situating this conversation at CHI, we contribute to the broader agenda of building
technologies that empower rather than harm. The Meet-Up provides a collaborative forum to share insights, critique solutions, and co-develop design principles for inclusive and safe virtual environments, ensuring that the next generation
of immersive platforms is both engaging and human-centered.