On December 18, at 12:30 Moscow time (GMT+3), the Valdai Club hosted an online discussion, titled “How to Set Up a New Virtual World?”
The coronavirus pandemic has boosted the development of the virtual world. Today it exists alongside the more familiar world of offline communications. Literally the whole life of a person is reflected in the virtual space including online shops, cinemas, libraries and social networks, which can be used on condition of anonymity, hiding under an avatar and a fictitious name. All international developments also have a virtual component. The pandemic, the US presidential elections, the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, the trade wars are just some of the examples we find in the digital space.
The world of new communications increasingly affects the real world and inevitably becomes one of the new threats. Online media and social networks have been transformed into tools for manipulating consciousness, the lack of reliable information is obvious. During the pandemic, the need to regulate the virtual space has increased, largely at the international level. The experts, including those of the Valdai Club, believe that the new virtual world needs institutions, associated with those that exist in the real space, for example, some sort of Internet citizenship and Internet taxes.
What is the threat posed by virtuality? Is it possible to reproduce the human communication institutions in the virtual world? Which of these institutions are needed in the first place? How will the virtual world change after the pandemic? The participants in the discussion will answer these and other questions.
Speakers:
Moderator:
Andrey Bystritskiy, Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for Development and Support of the Valdai Discussion Club.