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What is the metaverse?

Facebook has just accounced it is hiring 10,000 people to work on building the metaverse - a "digital reality" where you can perform many of the activities of a physical space.

Facebook has just accounced it is hiring 10,000 people to work on building the metaverse.  Kara Swisher, a podcast host and opinion writer for the New York Times, explains how the metaverse is a "digital reality", where you can perform many of the activities and transactions that you can do in a physical space, and describes the online game Minecraft as an example. She says that although many are excited about the possibilites of an immersive, digital world, some see it as a dystopian environment, and admits that she does not believe that Facebook are the best company to build one.

"They've [Facebook] have created such a bad social media environment I don't think we should trust them with the metaverse."

"The metaverse is a digital reality, a place you might live digitally, where you can do anything - you can have an ecomomy, you can live there, you can play there ... it's a place that surrounds you digitally."

Photo: An immersive art installation titled "Machine Hallucinations Space: Metaverse" by Refik Anadol at the Hong Kong digital arts fair - October 2021 Credit: Getty Images

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3 minutes