Ability to opt out of recording or streaming (via visual notification or settings)
There are a number of people who livestream their HZW experience to youtube or twitch or elsewhere. It feels a bit uncomfortable to find out, after the fact, that someone you have been interacting with has been recording and/or broadcasting your entire conversation and everything you've been doing in HZW, even if it seemed you were mostly in private 1-1 or with friends.
It might be illegal in some states with 'two party' consent rules (such as California, where Meta is headquartered) to record conversations without all parties being notified.
Proper notification could be done by providing an icon or similar on the floating nametag above anyone who is either recording or casting their HZW session. Other people would then have the option of not interacting with anyone who was actively keeping a record of the world.
A more draconian version of this feature would be to allow users to adjust settings such that their audio and avatar do not appear in recordings. This sort of functionality already exists in HZW, and is used for blocking other users. When someone starts recording, anyone with such settings would have their audio stop being sent to the recording user, and have their avatars replaced with 'blue people' in the recording users view.
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Ding Dong commented
The difficulty is that this platform and our usage of it mimicks a public place and as we all know, people have the right to record in public with or without your consent...
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Laex05 commented
Just wanted to note that a majority of live streams are done via desktop, which does not present itself as recording. This is in part because 3rd party software is used (ie. OBS). But the video isn't being cast, that means it would be really hard if not impossible to know if the users are simply using airlink or recording. Obviously flagging all would be an incorrect response.
I also don't think casting to one's home TV or computer should require a notification since the user may be just sharing what they see to their friends (like when I visit my family over the holidays, we all want to see what the one person is doing, or just give them directions like how to move).
I'm just here to say that it isn't so black and white, and while I appreciate the sentiment, it would be wrong to socially push away from users who may be brand new and just have their family on the other end helping or if they are a parent making sure the kids are being respectful.
That is to say, I know that I would keep my distance from anyone with a recording icon on, just as a general rule of thumb, and if people have this on and are not recording, it could make our virtual community more distant.
As a final point, I do like the idea of a streaming icon, not sure the right implementation though for all the concerns shared above.
Maybe a settings toggle for a name tag (as seen in some official Meta Horizon Worlds).
I'd also share that I have been personally attacked at public events by some of these VR Pranksters, so I do want a solution, but I think our community comes first. <3
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Roman Koshlyak commented
I would say this feature is impossible to implement, since someone can just record it on real camera if they really want to.
May be there can be some kind of indicator if you are visible/hearable to someone except friends. But this is really complex issue as for me -
Baron Shawn von Hartnell commented
Two party consent doesn't apply when there's no "reasonable expectation of privacy."
That's any public instance.
Regardless of the two party consent issue being moot, I'd still appreciate this feature.
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Wilbert John Wayne Graham commented
I hope they put zero resources behind this. There are many ways to record people outside of the app that it would be hard to display you are being recorded at all times.
You don't want to be recorded, there is private sessions or you can go into your app permissions and uncheck the allow to record, enjoy party chat.
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Dylan Kinnett commented
Yes I would definitely want to know if someone is recording.
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Ilina Ily commented
I’ve experienced something similar a few days ago and I’m still creeped out by it. Found out later that someone recorded me for over 1 hour while having a conversation with a friend. I reported that person, but as of right now there isn’t a “recorded me without consent” reason.
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MetaWisp commented
I’ve experienced something similar at a small social gathering last fall as well. And I asked a couple times last year, in the Horizon Worlds Community FB group, for some sort of visual indicator that someone is recording. It’s too easy to be ambushed by people who don’t notify others that they’re recording and then post the recording on YouTube, or livestream. People should have a conscious choice to participate in recording or streaming session or not.