Police are investigating a virtual sexual assault of a girl’s avatar, the chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners has said.
Donna Jones said she had learned that a complaint was made in 2023, triggering a police inquiry.
The virtual incident did not result in physical harm but caused “psychological trauma”, the Daily Mail has reported a source as saying. Police chiefs have called on platforms to do more to protect their users.
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I can’t make up my mind on this one. On one hand we probably should make some rules etiquette and laws regarding VR, but on the other hand I made it through the Halo series just fine and was able to separate myself from what those people did to my corpse.
Having been involved in something that was actually bad, I can say with certainty that there are enough rules already (in most places) that apply to these sorts of situations. Harassment and stalking crimes cover the sorts of things that need to be handled by police. If someone teabags you in Halo, or curses at you or says disgusting things in a voice chat, you either block them or shake your head and move on. If they follow you around through multiple lobbies, send/spam pictures or post/spray real pictures of genitalia (in places where it is not supposed to be, such as your inbox/cellphone/vr lobbies, obviously not talking about nsfw sites), those things are already crimes covered by harassment/stalking/sexting crimes.
There may be a few edge cases where someone can skirt the laws, but again, in my experience, the statutes are broad enough to catch almost everything you could imagine and want to be a crime.
Totally agree with you! If we are talking laws, it needs to be covered by general laws. Hopefully it already is wherever ppl are. It makes no sense to create specific laws for online games and VR games. Otherwise the next new tech needs its special law again, and the making of law is always late.
If we are talking etiquette, Netiquette exists.
I guess federation workers played a prank on me. Removed duplicate replies.
I was definitely left wondering why all those existed.
It sounds ridiculous that they assaulted an avatar. I think it is the wrong take. The avatar is just the medium. The target was obviously the person behind the avatar. It’s like saying that threats over text message is assaulting her phone.
It can’t be sexual assault.
[Edit: Sexual] Assault is physical contact.
The victim was in an online ‘room’ with a large number of fellow users when the virtual assault by several adult men took place.
Taken from the DailyMail. Neither article has details on which VR game/app she was, nor what kind of “assault” it was. The dailymail says it was “on the metaverse”, but “metaverse” could be VRChat, Fortnite or fucking Second Life for all we know. Could’ve even been on fuckzuck’s metaverse, Horizon Worlds, but isn’t it the place where you don’t have a bottom half and other avatars are forced to stay the equivalent of 1.5m away from you at all times?
Bottom line is adult men were engaging sexually with a minor online. Doesn’t really matter if it was VR or what. Hang them all.
I think harassment is probably more appropriate, unless said metaverse somehow allows the sexual assault of avatars, which I don’t think exists. I mean, IIRC Second Life technically has sex animations but afaik you have to strictly opt into that stuff. People can’t just go around and use your avatar for it and even then it would be the question why she went into such a place & features if she didn’t wanted to.
Maybe when an article says “The daily mail jas reported” we should completely ignore it until a better paper reports on it. Everything coming from the daily mail should be considered a lie.
I missed the Daily Mail bit. Thank you for pointing it out.
Put her into a halo or cod lobby, show her a glimpse of what actuality harrasment let alone assault looks like.
If this woman actually thinks this was sexual assault than she’s lucky to have never had been an actual victim.
[the victim] suffered psychological trauma “similar to that of someone who has been physically raped”.
No she didn’t. I’m sure it wasn’t a pleasant experience, but let’s not over exaggerate the situation.
I’m not so sure I agree with you. If I had a choice between getting raped IRL or Virtually, I would choose Virtually any day.
But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t get PTSD or some other trauma from being virtually assaulted. As far as I know, the brain sees all trauma equality because brains are dumb like that. So I think it is possible the victim is experiencing similar trauma to being raped IRL.
Yeah but wild we don’t over exaggerate the situation, how will I get all the attention?
Are you fucking kidding me?
They took cops off of real cases to work a VIRTUAL ASSAULT in a video game.
JFC I hope we fucking get nuked soon. We don’t deserve to live.
Can you at least agree that this is a case of harassment and cyber bullying?
Ah have you tried putting yourself in that person’s shoes at all and try to imagine how their experience might have felt like?
I don’t know about you, but if I was 16 and went into a VR environment, where you practically feel like you’re really there, with the intention to have some fun with friends, and a bunch of grown ass men started getting together and simulated a rape with explicit violent language, I would probably not feel very happy or secure. I’d probably log out feeling pretty dirty and uncomfortable. Basically the same kind of feeling you’d get from any form of sexual assault in real life.
What happened in that VR environment was done by real people who thought it was okay to sexually assault a teenage girl, even if it was virtual. They’re basically rape apologists and are enabling rape culture. Realizing the fact there are men like this is scary enough to be traumatized and never trust men again.
Did you read my comment or just go on a text block spree without finishing it?
For reference:
“… They took cops off of real cases to work a VIRTUAL ASSAULT in a video game. (just harassment, not assault btw)”
Pretending like this is a problem that requires police intervention is easily one of the most immature and incompetent things I’ve ever seen.
You know video games have moderators right?
For one, it doesn’t say that at all in the article.
Second, harassment and cyberbullying is a real case. Especially when it involves sexually explicit material or simulating sexual activity and the victim is a minor.
So yes, this is very much a real case.
the Daily Mail
Ah yes so file this under shit that never happened.
Assaulting someone in a VR game is still assault especially if they never consented.
What a joke.
Real crimes are being compared to vr “crimes”. Next will be thought crimes.
VR is immersive, but it isn’t that immersive, especially when it comes to user feedback
If it got that good vr would be in every household. Can’t wait to get a strangers finger up the bum.
More than just a finger probably
Please don’t kill people in Counter strike or they might get PTSD
This place needs more girls.
The comments here are appealing. So many rape apologists. This is what rape culture is all about.
Y’all should be ashamed.
Can you point to a comment that is highly upvoted and is a rape apologist?
No. The simple fact that you’re asking this question is proof that you’re acting in bad faith.
I’m done with this thread.
Can you provide evidence for your extraordinary claim?
No I can provide no evidence for my claim therefore I’m right.
You get why this makes no sense right?
It’s your problem if you want to go off in a big huff because the rest of the universe doesn’t conform to your imaginations. Next time try to get pissy about something that’s actually happening.
I don’t think you meant “appealing”.
No I meant appalling. Stupid autocorrect.
In a game?? I kinda understand harrasment over the phone or messages or whatever, but in the game? Just change servers or fucking turn off your pc, lmao. Games are not a real place
Over the phone?? Just change phone numbers or hang up your phone. You aren’t even in the same place.
I know right? Just turn off your fucking phone and change number and deal with having to send all your contacts your new number. So easy, lol. Totally the same thing as changing game server. Yup, same difficulty. You’re absolutely smart.
These are not the same things, if you’re afraid of being stalked that can happen regardless of how you interact online.
This isn’t real SA, this is a perversion of the law.
You’re not wrong, but the whole point of the article was basically “this is fucked up and something should be done about it. Can we use current laws to address it or do we need new ones?”
Helping to prevent people being harassed online is a good thing and doesn’t take away from the need to prevent it offline nor does it somehow invalidate people that have been assaulted.
My original tongue in cheek comment was in response to the victim-blamey comments acting like “it’s online, so it doesn’t count”.
I’m gonna try to level with you, and I need you to really pay attention to the words I use because I’m not insinuating anything other than what I’m saying.
I’ve seen VR chat. I know how online rooms like that work. If the person who was “SA’d” mistakenly clicked on a room that was far more lewd than what they were looking for, that’s on them. Ignorance is not a defense, and this is completely assuming that the “victim” was unaware of what they were doing when they entered the room.
There’s not a single piece of text suggesting that the “assault” or “harassment” continued offline.
This does not need a law. The only realistic thing to be done is to make sure rooms where stuff like this is prominent give a warning before joining. That is the only acceptable response, there is no reason for law to step in.
So it is the literal child’s fault for accidentally joining a “lewd” vr chat room…? The girl was under 16 in the article. If the VR chat service is setup so that literal children can get into sexually aggressive chat rooms completely unaware and by accident, I do believe there are a few laws being broken there.
Not even close to being the same thing is it.
One of them is pressing the button the other is more complicated and more problematic for your life.
