Augmented Reality Mediation Ownership Rights

3 years after augmented reality smart goggles reach the tipping point of ubiquity, amid growing unrest by civil rights activists, the federal government passes the controversial Augmented Reality Mediation Ownership Rights act, known as ARMOR.

Although opinions on the subject vary, ARMOR was drafted and implemented in response to a viral video in which a man demonstrates the use of an app called “Jive Turkey” that makes all black people in his field of view talk like characters in old racist cartoons.

In order to be ARMOR compliant, augmented reality apps are not allowed to change your race, sex, or age without your explicit consent. No one is allowed to use an app to change your accent or mannerisms except you.

If you’re white, you can’t change your race, otherwise you can choose to be white or your own race. You can be a man or a woman, you can be young or old. You can choose mediation filters to transform your accent or your voice or your gait or the way you gesture when you talk.

Racial justice activists have argued that the ability for anyone of any race to appear white in mediated reality constitutes a kind of erasure of minorities that contributes to heightened racial tensions in the augmented reality age.

Opponents of this view respond that people of all races should be able to benefit from being perceived as white, and some extremists argue that, if anything, white people should be forced to present as other races, but others argue that this is minstrelsy dressed up as justice.

Many people choose to maintain both a professional and personal mediated self-presentation in AR. The ideal age and sex for work may be different than the ideal for leisure. Despite the fact that people can present as any age or race or sex at work, wage gaps have persisted.

Most companies now use a special government-approved filter to make your co-workers appear to be the same race as you and whichever sex you don’t prefer. This has been called binary normative and oppressive but it also mitigates sexual harassment liability