Building products with partnership and accountability
An introduction to the Meta Reality Labs Policy Advisory Council
What is the Reality Labs Policy Advisory Council?
As Meta continues to research, innovate and build cutting-edge technology and hardware, we frequently encounter novel public policy questions. The Meta Reality Labs Policy Advisory Council was formed in 2021 to advise Reality Labs teams throughout product and policy development, and strengthen our approach to responsible innovation and an open metaverse.
What types of people are on the Council?
The Council advises and guides decisions made within Reality Labs through its diverse expertise. The group comprises developers, professors and academics, civil society advocates, including privacy, youth safety and disability advocates from around the globe. Its mission is simple: To provide insights and advice for consideration throughout the Reality Labs product development process to help anticipate and mitigate harms that people, governments, and society are most concerned about.
Guidance areas
The Council advises on issues such as:
- Privacy and data protection
- The development of smart and AR glasses
- Social virtual reality
- Platform policies
- Protecting youth
The Council is not a decision making body, and they have no formal decision making authority, meaning that it is advisory only, but it is engaged deeply in, and asked to opine on, very difficult and complex questions. We recognize that the profoundly innovative work in this area will exert dramatic effects on our daily lives and will therefore raise a host of interesting and challenging issues.
Council members
Catherine Allen
Lead Consultant & CEO at Limina Immersive
Henry Ajder
Latent Space Advisory
Bertrand de La Chapelle
Executive Director, Internet & Jurisdiction Policy Network and Chief Vision Officer, Datasphere Initiative
George Giaglis
Professor, University of Nicosia
Keri Gray
Keri Gray Consulting Group
Brittan Heller
Stanford Law School
Larry Magid
CEO, ConnectSafely
Guillaume Moreau
IMT Atlantique
Dr. Isabel Pedersen
Ontario Tech University
Dr. Rashawn Ray
Sociology Professor at University of Maryland; Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution
Elissa M. Redmiles
Georgetown University
Noah Robinson
MSc, Founder & CEO, Innerworld
Caroline Running Wolf (Crow)
First Languages AI Reality (FLAIR)
Vicki Shotbolt
Founder and CEO, Parent Zone
Amie Stepanovich
Consultant
Megan Stifel
Silicon Harbor Consultants, LLC
Mirjam Vosmeer
PhD., Foxlake Immersive Consultancy
NOTE: This list, which includes self-identified members of the Council, is not exhaustive, and may change over time.
Frequently asked questions
The purpose of the Council is to get proactive, diverse feedback throughout product development to ensure we are aware of and can mitigate potential risks posed by the development of such technology as augmented and virtual reality. The Council collaborates with experts and advocates as the technology is developed.
No, this group is different from the Oversight Board. Mainly, this group is non-decisional and they are focused on augmented and virtual reality products and policies specifically.
You can find the members of the group who have chosen to self identify themselves above.
The group was formed in 2021 as a means of putting our Responsible Innovation Principles into practice. This group provides Meta with a consistent mechanism for getting external product and policy-focused feedback during the early stages of product development, helping ensure our products meet the expectations of the diverse communities we serve.
Yes. While we are not building the metaverse alone, Reality Labs is the team at Meta that’s responsible for developing and building the next computing platform centered around people, not our devices. To help make the metaverse a reality, we engage with external stakeholders as part of its development, including the Council.