metasafechild
Abstract
In this submission and the current PhD research, we explore the different roles and views of the stakeholders and
argue that a collaborative effort is necessary to ensure effective safeguarding children in social VR. In particular, we
recently found that parents would apply a breadth of safeguarding practices and interventions to protect their children
without variation based on the children’s age. Moreover, we measured children’s perceptions (aged 8-16) of an
AI-embodied moderator and its actions after the disruptions. The results showed that children felt significantly
safer and less sad when the moderator suspended the saboteur. 17 parents noted the usefulness of it and felt reassured
but emphasised that they would want to remain involved in the supervision loop. While prior work studied teenagers’
and children’s perspectives about social VR use, how children interact with other children and with adults in social
VR [8] from observations or via interviews with adults, we aim to emphasise the importance of collaboration
and navigation of diverse perspectives that may include parents, care givers, experts in child development and the
developers to ensure that children can safely and responsibly engage with social VR.
