In recent years, digital technology has developed rapidly.On the one hand, it accelerates the integration of technology and life, changes people's way of life; on the other hand, it also generates new types of legal interests and new types of legal interests infringement. How to balance the advantages and disadvantages of digital technologies has become one of the most popular research topics in law. Against this background, the metaverse, as a representative digital technology, has been widely concerned by society and gradually put into use. However, there is a certain risk of new legal interests infringement. How criminal law deals with the criminal risk in the metaverse space is of reference significance to the development and application of other digital technologies.
This paper summarizes the theoretical presupposition and actual meta-cosmic criminal risks, and finds that there are criminal risks of violating personal rights in the metaverse space, including insult, slander, and indecency. There will also be criminal risks of infringing on the legal interests of property such as legal digital assets of others. There may also be criminal risks of crowd fights, casinos and other crimes that disrupt social management order in the metaverse space. It will also lead to the risk of illegal absorption of public deposits, fund-raising fraud, money laundering and other crimes that undermine the order of the socialist market economy.
In the face of the criminal risk in the metaverse, there are two coping positions in the theoretical circle. One viewpoint holds that criminal law should actively respond to new interests and behaviors in the metaverse, and timely regulate it by adding new crimes and filling the scope of application of existing crimes. The other view is that the metaverse is no different from the virtual world, and there is no challenge to the legal system, so the regulation of the metaverse risk is creating an “academic bubble”.
For the aforementioned positions, both active intervention and passive avoidance are suspected of being taken to extremes. One position overemphasizes risk and exaggerates the role of positive criminal law, while the other disregards the new challenges posed by emerging technologies to the application of criminal law. This paper argues that it is necessary for criminal law to adopt a cautious approach in regulating meta-cosmic criminal risks. Firstly, based on the relationship between the metaverse and traditional networks, criminal law should not haphazardly create new offenses to address the so-called digital age risks; instead, it should carefully consider legal interests infringed upon in the metaverse and their modes of infringement. Secondly, criminal law should adhere to fundamental doctrinal principles and interpret existing norms to prevent and control criminal risks in metaverse space. Specifically, adopting a benefit-oriented approach as a guiding principle will enable effective participation of criminal law in preventing meta-space risks. From a macro perspective, regulation of meta-cosmic criminal risks should be premised on actual infringements upon legal interests. From a micro perspective, objective interpretation of existing norms with an aim towards normative protection will ensure inclusion of relevant legal infringements within the broadest scope permitted by semantics.
Against the current backdrop of theoretical research on criminal law responses to all riskson digital technologies, including the metaverse, two extreme positions have emerged. While this paper solely focuses on the regulation of criminal risks in the metaverse by criminal law, the proposed path of cautious intervention based on doctrinal stance holds universal applicability for addressing other riskson digital technologies.