The emergence of the metaverse as an immersive digital environment has raised questions concerning digital interaction, trust, information security, privacy, algorithmic fairness, and the social evaluation of emerging technologies. Despite international scholarship, empirical evidence on factors associated with social perceptions of the metaverse in Iran remains limited. This study examines the structural associations among metaverse use, trust and information security, perceived algorithmic fairness, and social perception of the metaverse, while also considering privacy concerns and problematic metaverse use through supplementary analyses. The study employed a quantitative, applied, and cross-sectional design using structural equation modeling implemented in Python. Data were collected from 200 undergraduate students at Mohaghegh Ardabili University using a questionnaire with five-point Likert-scale items. The findings showed that metaverse use, trust and information security, and perceived algorithmic fairness were positively and significantly associated with social perception of the metaverse. Trust and information security were also positively associated with metaverse use, which formed an estimated indirect pathway between trust and information security and social perception. Supplementary analyses indicated that privacy concerns were negatively associated with trust and information security, perceived algorithmic fairness, and metaverse use. In contrast, metaverse use, perceived realism, and escape from everyday problems were positively associated with problematic metaverse use. Given the cross-sectional design, these relationships are interpreted as statistical associations rather than evidence of causality or temporal precedence. The findings provide empirical evidence on the sociotechnological conditions associated with metaverse perceptions among university students and offer context-specific implications for digital governance and future research.