cormack12
Gold Member
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67865327
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 impact of the attack on the girl's avatar was said to be heightened because of the immersive nature of the VR experience.
According to an unnamed senior officer familiar with the matter who spoke to the paper the victim, under 16 at the time, suffered psychological trauma "similar to that of someone who has been physically raped".
In 2022, researcher Nina Jane Patel revealed she was abused in a virtual world operated by Meta called Horizon Venues (now part of Horizon Worlds), likening it to sexual assault.
Recalling the experience, Ms Patel told the same programme that she was "surrounded by three to four male-sounding and male-representing avatars, who started sexually harassing me in a verbal sense and then sexually assaulting my avatar".
She said they had used misogynistic language and "continued to touch my avatar in a way that can only be described as a sexual assault of my avatar".
The BBC has not yet confirmed on which platform the attack on the young girl's avatar took place but Meta has said in a statement: "The kind of behaviour described has no place on our platform, which is why for all users we have an automatic protection called personal boundary, which keeps people you don't know a few feet away from you.
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 impact of the attack on the girl's avatar was said to be heightened because of the immersive nature of the VR experience.
According to an unnamed senior officer familiar with the matter who spoke to the paper the victim, under 16 at the time, suffered psychological trauma "similar to that of someone who has been physically raped".
In 2022, researcher Nina Jane Patel revealed she was abused in a virtual world operated by Meta called Horizon Venues (now part of Horizon Worlds), likening it to sexual assault.
Recalling the experience, Ms Patel told the same programme that she was "surrounded by three to four male-sounding and male-representing avatars, who started sexually harassing me in a verbal sense and then sexually assaulting my avatar".
She said they had used misogynistic language and "continued to touch my avatar in a way that can only be described as a sexual assault of my avatar".
The BBC has not yet confirmed on which platform the attack on the young girl's avatar took place but Meta has said in a statement: "The kind of behaviour described has no place on our platform, which is why for all users we have an automatic protection called personal boundary, which keeps people you don't know a few feet away from you.
