“There is a risk that in terms of a socioeconomic, gender, ethnic makeup, the populace of the metaverse may be imbalanced. We don’t live in a time where there’s equitable access to the sorts of infrastructure that one would need to engage in these technologies.”

Mansell said the social-political issues associated with the metaverse will be identical to those on existing social-media platforms, such as Facebook – including data, surveillance, regulation and representation of gender, race and ethnicity. But in the immersive world of the metaverse, they will be on a far larger scale. She believes tech giants should be forced to wait before launch until there is “clarity about how they’re going to be governed”.

>"Nick Clegg will on Monday set out the tech giant’s vision of a virtual world where you can work, shop and ‘live’. But the move is prompting new fears over privacy"