this daily mail Report on possible first-ever British police investigation into sexual assault in cyberspace:
Police are investigating the first rape case in the virtual universe after a child was “attacked” in a virtual reality video game.
The girl, aged under 16, is said to be distraught after her avatar – her digital persona – was gang-raped by strangers online.
The victim, who was wearing headphones, suffered no injuries as there was no physical attack.
But police said she suffered the same psychological and emotional trauma as someone raped in the real world because the VR experience is designed to be fully immersive.
We don’t know which police force in the UK is investigating the incident, which is said to have happened last year.
We also don’t know which virtual world triggered this incident – although there have been numerous reports of sexual harassment and virtual gang rape in Meta’s “Horizon World” in the past.
Horizon World has a “Personal Boundaries” setting designed to prevent avatars from getting within four feet of each other, although this can be disabled.
Horizon Worlds also explains that since it is an 18+ platform, it does not have any active parental control features.I have no doubt that the children Do To play Horizon World, you may need parental permission, but it does mean that they are at risk of some pretty unpleasant behavior from other players.
The sad truth is that Meta doesn’t adequately deal with abuse on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, so I have no confidence that it can make its version of the Metaverse an enjoyable place to hang out.
Unfortunately, at the same time, I find it difficult to imagine police forces having the resources or capacity to properly investigate virtual sexual assaults, let alone bring perpetrators to justice.
And before you even begin to consider the unusual nature of this—sexual assault involves no physical interaction between the attacker and the victim, who may actually be located on opposite sides of the world.
yes of course Feel It’s like something very wrong happened to this kid, but I suspect the police may find it difficult to work out exactly what laws were broken here, let alone put together a convincing prosecution case to prove that happened sexual assault.
Once again, technology and anti-social behavior are quickly disappearing – and the law hasn’t even put on its shoes yet.
I would feel more comfortable if people realized how easy and common it is to exhibit the worst of human behavior online when people are physically distanced from each other… and certainly if young people were more actively discouraged from spending time in metaverses middle.
For more discussion of sexual abuse in Horizon Worlds, listen to this episode of the Smashing Security podcast.
