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[UK] Police investigate virtual sex assault on girl's avatar

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.
 

cormack12

Gold Member
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".

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Had to read that all the way through and click the article to even begin to comprehend what is going on.

This is one of the weirdest fucking things I've ever heard of. Tax payers money is going toward this kind of shit? Stop it, the police should just drop this crap and tell that fucking idiot to grow up.

The world has gone mad. Next we'll be hearing about how a bunch of cunts seeking therapy for the amount of virtual tea bagging they had to endure after being killed in Halo 2 all those years ago. This is just bananas.
 

Go_Ly_Dow

Member
I have no doubt these virtual spaces have some real cretins on them that need to be caught, but still you'd be better off heavily regulating these services firstly to protect children by restricting access than wasting precious police resources on these kinds of cases.
 
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Tams

Member
I'm so sorry for the state of my country.

Some bobbies came by the cul-de-sac I live on this evening and didn't even know where they were going. The address they had was a farm currently being renovated, so no one even lives there at the moment. Also the only police I've seen around for months.

On topic: moron girl shouldn't have even been on Horizon Worlds.

ffs
 

RickMasters

Member
jeez….. next thing you know, people are gonna report getting their assses kicked on COD multiple times as homicide.


What is the world coming too? 🤣🤣🤣
 

Evolved1

make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
The title is stupid, but the actual content doesn’t seem especially controversial. The actual girl was a juvenile and that behavior is not acceptable. It’s the job of police and courts to investigate. If the claims do not show merit, they will be dismissed. That’s how it works.
 
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MudoSkills

Volcano High Alumnus (Cum Laude)
I know this is ridiculous but it's not like these police officers would be doing good work if they were investigating something else. Ideal if you need someone to turn up three hours after you get robbed and tell you that they can't do anything about it though.
 

Pejo

Gold Member
The title is stupid, but the actual content doesn’t seem especially controversial. The actual girl was a juvenile and that behavior is not acceptable. It’s the job of police and courts to investigate. If the claims do not show merit, they will be dismissed. That’s how it’s works.
I think a better takeaway from this would be to

A) set age limits for interaction in these types of games/experiences (she shouldn't be anywhere near this as a minor for instance) and
B) have better in-game methods for blocking/reporting problematic players.

I don't want to go all slippery slope defending some shitheads that were being gross here, but there should be a VERY clear line between actual crimes and "virtual" ones.
 

Evolved1

make sure the pudding isn't too soggy but that just ruins everything
I think a better takeaway from this would be to

A) set age limits for interaction in these types of games/experiences (she shouldn't be anywhere near this as a minor for instance) and
B) have better in-game methods for blocking/reporting problematic players.

I don't want to go all slippery slope defending some shitheads that were being gross here, but there should be a VERY clear line between actual crimes and "virtual" ones.
Yeah, it’s a reasonable take.
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
The avatar angle is weird and I'm honestly not even sure where to land on that. But verbally harassing, especially sexually, an underaged girl is a fucking no go.
Seems most people above are fine with it as long as the person has the option to go offline since that all makes it fake, no kid has ever been traumatised, groomed or coerced to suicide or whatever else by things happening in any form other than personal interaction within the same room I guess.

Or maybe this can be dismissed even if it happens in the same room if say, a little girl draws herself and then they go draw themselves doing things to the drawing, that should be totally fine too I guess, the kid can just not look at the picture shown to her. All very logical responses to such incidents.
 
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