Can Groups Commit Terrorism in the Metaverse?

A couple days after Facebook changed its name to Meta, a friend asked me if I had seen Mr Zuckerberg’s keynote. No, I responded. “It is crazy,” my friend replied. Intrigued, I watched the keynote, and immediately messaged back, “Crazy no, it is puzzling!” Among the myriad of questions Meta’s metaverse raises, I stumbled on one: can groups commit terrorism in the metaverse?

A Fused Reality

The concepts and the technologies behind a metaverse are not new or unique. What is new in Facebook’s proposed metaverse is the idea of a fused physical and virtual reality; a space where the real and virtual world effortlessly co-exist. In the keynote, Andrew Bosworth, Meta’s senior vice president for augmented and virtual reality said, “realistic presence is the key to feeling connected in the metaverse.” [1] Mr Bosworth’s quote highlights the differentiating factor between the metaverse and existing cyber spaces: the realistic feeling of presence. On the internet, one interacts at a two-dimensional level. One post, scrolls, and reacts to other non-physical posts. While posts and the content therein often transcend into the physical world, the 2D content does not “touch” a person’s physical space. Even existing 3D cyber spaces are constrained to one set of predetermined 3D environments. By extension, the constrained environment controls what emotions and sensations one expects to feel. For example, a virtual reality roller coaster or a video game with a set of predetermined sounds, tracks, or characters.

In contrast, the metaverse disrupts this construct. Due to its emphasis in realistic presence, users will “feel,” sense, and perceive a wide range of unknown emotions. Just as in the real world, users will wear clothes, have a “home space”, an office, shop, and interact/hangout with other people (“avatars.”) Unlike other cyber platforms, the user will be the one performing the actions, exercising judgment, feeling, and perceiving every moment they are in the metaverse.

Terrorism in the Metaverse

To evaluate if terrorism is even possible in the metaverse, it cannot exist in anarchy. This means government institutions/personnel must have representation. For example, a local city may have a metaverse version of a DMV building, or a courthouse. In that same vein — and at a minimum — the jurisprudence and laws of the real world must transcend and be applicable to metaverse scenarios. For example, copyright infringement or burglary, as in a group of avatars steals digitals goods from a metaverse home space. This assumption is important because terrorism is political, and it exists outside the bounds of the law. By extension, this also assumes that governments and institutions will fully regulate and participate in the metaverse. A move not unthinkable given America’s financial regulator’s recent interest in cryptocurrencies. [2]

If these assumptions hold true, terrorism in the metaverse may be plausible. The metaverse and its “realistic presence” may solve the physicality problem. An issue that some proponents of “cyberterrorism” cannot sufficiently explain but that is required for the terrorism label to apply. Recall that for any event to be considered terrorism, it must meet three elements: it must be political in nature; it must be instrumental in generating fear to others; and there must be a threat or physical act of violence. [3] Some proponents of “cyberterrorism” get around the physicality element by arguing: “physical harm may be less pertinent relative to the production of fear in defining an incident as an act of cyberterror[ism]” [4] In other words, insofar as the cyber action (attack) produces enough fear there need not to be physical harm.

But this argument falls short. And it might be an example of “stretching”, developing a term, and expanding its definitional space to the point of vagueness or abstraction. [5] Likewise, even when a “cyberterrorism attack” occurs, terrorist groups may generate more inconvenience than fear making it difficult to distinguish the attack from general cybercrime.

But the metaverse’s realistic presence will allow groups to meet and exceed the physicality element. Imagine a Pink Floyd concert — sponsored by a multinational Wall Street firm — in the metaverse. A multitude of avatars, including yours, are in attendance listening to the band’s avatars perform. Everyone in the real world is at their home or other designated space. Because of the realistic presence, avatars (you) are “living” the concert experience dancing, making judgments about their surroundings, and fully emerged “as if it was a real live concert.”

Just as the concert enters its apex and the band begins to play its renown “Money”, a left-leaning anti-capitalist group explodes three bombs “killing” countless avatars. Of course, in real life no user is hurt but the perception of real physical harm (the explosion, chaos, fear) — thanks to the feeling of realistic presence — is vivid and for however long it takes for you to take off your VR set the perception of real harm exist. This is not dissimilar to dreams where one perceives sensations and emotions as if they were real.

Similarly, the metaverse may also help groups suffice the instrumentality element. In the example, the fear of the virtual bombs might deter concert goers, the firms from financing it, and the artist (avatars) from performing; consequences all too similar to the real world. Paradoxically then, cyberterrorism may gain weight as a credible term thanks to the metaverse.

They May, But Will They?

Terrorism in the metaverse may be plausible but groups may not necessarily choose to employ it. To begin with, terrorist groups are shockingly conservative in their attack methods. In the 1990’s Hoffman wrote “ while terrorists were undeniably more active and considerably more lethal during the 1980s compared to the 1970s, the targets they chose, the weapons they used, and the tactics they employed remained remarkably consistent.[6] An anecdotal review of recent attacks (from left, right, ethnonationalist, and religious groups) suggest Hoffman’s claim proves true today. For example, the ISIS-perpetrated November 2015 attack used machine guns and bombs. [7] In 2019, a far-right terrorist in New Zealand shot 49 people in two mosques. [8] Even the 9/11 hijackings –cited as the posterchild of terrorist innovation — was not particularly new. For example, in 1989, the terrorist group Los Extraditables, an offshoot of Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel blew up an Avianca Boeing 727, killing all 107 on board. [9]

Second, terrorist groups have generally used the internet and cyberspace as a tool not as a method. As Holt wrote “over the last two decades extremist and terror groups have used the internet for recruitment, fundraising, and the dissemination and acquisition of attack information. [10] This may be because terrorist groups do not possess the technical know-how to code or create bomb carrying avatars in the metaverse. This has certainly been the case in the current cyberspace where complex “cyberattacks” have generally been attributed to nation states.

This is not to say that terrorist groups do not innovate in their attack methods. But innovation, as Hafez and Rasmussen found, “may be more gradual than abrupt.”[11] Terrorist groups are generally risk-adverse in their target selection [12] and when they do innovate it has often been in response to security countermeasures. [13] Therefore, the metaverse will likely serve as viable scenario if the counterterrorism landscape has severely limited the operational landscape.

A Metapuzzle

It may be years — perhaps a decade -before the metaverse is fully functional. But the metaverse represents a metapuzzle of critical questions around governance, privacy, and security. If society wants to learn its lesson from the fast adaptation of social media, those questions will need to be answered sooner rather than later. To that, terrorism in the metaverse might just be one piece to the puzzle.

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[1] See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvufun6xer8

[2] https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/us-regulators-exploring-how-banks-could-hold-crypto-assets-fdic-chairman-2021-10-26/

[3] See the three most common definitional elements in LEONARD WEINBERG, AMI PEDAHZUR & SIVAN HIRSCH-HOEFLER (2004) & Alex Schmid, Albert Jongman, et al., Political Terrorism (1988)

[4] Thomas J. Holt (2012) Exploring the Intersections of Technology, Crime, and Terror, Terrorism and Political Violence, 24:2, 337–354, DOI: 10.1080/09546553.2011.648350

[5] LEONARD WEINBERG, AMI PEDAHZUR & SIVAN HIRSCH-HOEFLER adapt Collier and Mahon’s original concepts (from Conceptual “Stretching” Revisited: Adapting Categories in Comparative Analysis; David Collier and James E. Mahon, Jr. The American Political Science Review, Dec. 1993, Vol. 87, №4 (Dec. 1993), pp. 845–855) on terrorism. See them (2004) The Challenges of Conceptualizing Terrorism, Terrorism and Political Violence, 16:4, 777–794, DOI: 10.1080/095465590899768

[6] See Hoffman in Terrorist Targeting: Tactics, Trends, and Potentialities in Wilkinson, Paul. Technology and Terorrism (p. 12). Taylor and Francis. 1993.

[7] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34818994

[8] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47578798

[9] https://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/06/world/colombia-says-bomb-led-to-crash-last-month-of-plane-carrying-107.html

[10] Thomas J. Holt (2012) Exploring the Intersections of Technology, Crime, and Terror, Terrorism and Political Violence, 24:2, 337–354, DOI: 10.1080/09546553.2011.648350

[11] See Dr. Mohammed M. Hafez and Dr. Maria Rasmussen in Terrorist Innovations in Weapons of Mass Effect, Phase II

[12] See Zoe Marchment & Paul Gill (2020): Spatial Decision Making of Terrorist Target Selection: Introducing the TRACK Framework, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, DOI 10.1080/1057610X.2020.1711588

[13] See João Ricardo Faria (2006) Terrorist Innovations and Anti-Terrorist Policies, Terrorism and Political Violence, 18:1, 47–56, DOI: 10.1080/095465591009377; Hoffman also found this almost two decades ago when he essentially argued that “ it is not surprising to find that the frequency of various types of terrorist attacks decreases in direct proportion to the complexity or sophistication required” See Hoffman in Terrorist Targeting: Tactics, Trends, and Potentialities in Wilkinson, Paul. Technology and Terorrism (p. 12). Taylor and Francis. 1993