The incident in a virtual world reportedly left the under-16-year-old traumatised.

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.

…

The impact of the attack on the girl’s avatar was said to be heightened because of the immersive nature of the VR experience.

  • Kalkaline @leminal.space
    986·
    10 months ago

    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.

    • Cyber Yuki@lemmy.world
      397·
      10 months ago

      I would classify this as sexual harassment. It’s no different from being sent obscene videos over email. The gravity resides in that they’re sexual assault videos with the recipient being the victim.

      • kase@lemmy.world
        2·
        10 months ago

        This situation reminds me of the deepfake porn issue that’s been going around as well. Ofc there are differences, but mainly I mean the confusion around it of ‘how he hell do we categorize this’. I don’t know nearly enough to make a judgement here, but yours does sound reasonable imho.

        (People have been saying this website isn’t super trustworthy, so I’m taking it with a grain of salt. Even if the story is fake - I’m not saying it is, for all I know it may be true, though I hope not - I imagine it’s still worthy of discussion as something that could happen.)

    • PopMyCop@iusearchlinux.fyi
      243·
      10 months ago

      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.

  • Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    86·
    10 months ago

    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.

  • Chaos@lemmy.world
    411·
    10 months ago

    The amount of murder I have done in gaming. I’m going away for a long time boys💀

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
    424·
    10 months ago

    [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.

    • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
      71·
      10 months ago

      If it had been my avatar, I wonder if they’d be making that claim. As in, if it was literally the same avatar but I’d been wearing the headset.

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
      63·
      10 months ago

      Yeah but wild we don’t over exaggerate the situation, how will I get all the attention?

    • deaf_fish@lemm.ee
      2·
      10 months ago

      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.

  • Dr. Coomer@lemmy.worldEnglish
    292·
    10 months ago

    The fact that this is even compared to real SA is so fucked up. At least on the internet or game you can leave, it’s not like your forced to endure the actions or behavior of other people.

  • kingthrillgore@lemmy.ml
    3610·
    10 months ago

    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.

  • trackcharlie@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    3917·
    10 months ago

    Are you fucking kidding me?

    They took cops off of real cases to work a VIRTUAL ASSAULT in a video game. (just harassment, not assault btw)

    JFC I hope we fucking get nuked soon. We don’t deserve to live.

    • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
      1212·
      10 months ago

      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.

      • trackcharlie@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
        104·
        10 months ago

        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?

        • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
          54·
          10 months ago

          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.

      • chitak166@lemmy.world
        42·
        10 months ago

        You don’t have to socialize with those people.

        You have the tools at your disposal to control who you interact with online.

        • Cyborganism@lemmy.ca
          24·
          10 months ago

          I don’t know what platform they were using. And maybe in a VR setting, and with multiple characters, it’s a little difficult to find out who the perpetrators are.

          When I play an online FPS game for example, I don’t always see our notice the names of the players I interact with.

          And that’s beside the point anyway. That girl has the right to feel safe even in a VR setting where the aim of the platform is to simply interact with others as you would in real life. I don’t know why nobody here understands this.

  • Wanderer@lemm.ee
    299·
    10 months ago

    What a joke.

    Real crimes are being compared to vr “crimes”. Next will be thought crimes.

  • I Cast Fist@programming.devEnglish
    16·
    10 months ago

    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?

  • KeefChief13@lemmy.world
    14·
    10 months ago

    I just feel like this would set a negative precedent for interactions in online games. Idk tho, not a lawyer.

  • pineapplelover@infosec.pubEnglish
    178·
    10 months ago

    It’s harassment. The game or platform should ban or punish the user. This should be protected under free speech. It’s still disgusting though.

    • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.eeEnglish
      151·
      10 months ago

      why would sexually harassing children fall under free speech? I agree with you that it’s not assault, but even in the absence of assault this behavior wouldn’t be protected speech in real life and it shouldn’t be protected speech online

      • pineapplelover@infosec.pubEnglish
        18·
        10 months ago

        It’s legally protected speech. In real life, you would get the shit knocked out of you, and rightfully so. In online, the most they can do is virtually beat them up or ban from the servers.

        Edit: it depends on the severity of it too iirc. Saying “nice tits” isn’t as severe as “I’m going to rape the shit out of you”

    • DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world
      112·
      10 months ago

      The game should ban the offender but I can’t not think involving the police is a bit ridiculous and waste of resources.