<p>This article conceptualizes the notion of algorithmic representation to illuminate key areas of ethical concern that virtual reality (VR)-based social media prompt to address. We highlight how VR-based social media, as in the ongoing transformation of Facebook and other social media in their integration with artificial intelligence (AI), necessitate reappropriation of regulatory apparatuses of personal data. Doing so, this study contributes to the understanding of metaverse, a VR-based algorithmic platform, as ‘a representational system’, and integrates a virtual reality research perspective with critical algorithm studies to identify highly arbitrary, selective nature of algorithmic representation. We identify the key opportunities of algorithmic governance where the momentum toward VR-based social media must replant its conceptual terrain: (1) cross-platform, (2) cross-time, (3) derivative, (4) marginalized, and (5) concentrated representation. This study’s thesis is that the Silicon Valley industry, as well as its regulators, should critically reflect on unsubstantiated epistemological claim of AI machine-human equivalence. This study argues for the alternative narrative of algorithmic constructedness that is based on participatory representation, rather than accepting the premise of any foreseeable replacement, supplement, and reflection of social actors by an objective machine.</p>