this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2024
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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.

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[–] Kalkaline@leminal.space 92 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] yuki2501@lemmy.world 32 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] PopMyCop@iusearchlinux.fyi 21 points 10 months ago (9 children)

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.

[–] ToxicWaste@lemm.ee 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] Draedron@lemmy.dbzer0.com 86 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] magnetosphere@kbin.social 16 points 10 months ago

I missed the Daily Mail bit. Thank you for pointing it out.

[–] chaosppe@lemmy.world 40 points 10 months ago

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

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 38 points 10 months ago (3 children)

[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 6 points 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 3 points 10 months ago

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

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[–] FluorideMind@lemmy.world 33 points 10 months ago (2 children)
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[–] danikpapas@lemm.ee 28 points 10 months ago

Please don't kill people in Counter strike or they might get PTSD

[–] RIP_Cheems@lemmy.world 27 points 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 26 points 10 months ago* (last edited 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.com 22 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

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.

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[–] Wanderer@lemm.ee 20 points 10 months ago

What a joke.

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

[–] JustARaccoon@lemmy.world 19 points 10 months ago (1 children)

VR is immersive, but it isn't that immersive, especially when it comes to user feedback

[–] LUHG_HANI@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

If it got that good vr would be in every household. Can't wait to get a strangers finger up the bum.

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[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 16 points 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 points 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.pub 9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 14 points 10 months ago (3 children)

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

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[–] DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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

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[–] Cornpop@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

Omfg this is so absurdly stupid. What a waste of time for the police who have actual issues to be concerned with.

[–] alienanimals@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

Just one count of assault? I've been teabagged online more times than I can count.

[–] qaz@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

The article seems a bit silly, but online harassment is an actual issue and can have a big impact, especially for minors. The way it's presented, especially the Daily Mail article (“British police probe VIRTUAL rape in metaverse” and the mentioning of AI) is a significant (perhaps deliberate) misunderstanding of the problem for the sake of clicks. In reality, this situation isn't that different compared to Omgele back in the day, but instead it's compared to physical SA. I think this kind of clickbait reporting does not contribute to bringing awareness to the issue of digital harassment, nor to a greater understanding required to solve it. It's presented as a new threat (like DM likes to do), but in fact this is simply a new form of online harassment, like we've been seeing for years.

Kids as young as 8 years old are being given unsupervised access to the internet. This alone seems very unhealthy, but it also means that other individuals get access to them. Grooming and online harassment have been an issue since SMS, and probably will be. The police does not have the expertise and capacity (or perhaps motivation) required to deal with these situations. The online platforms fail at moderation, some allow users to send death threats while using some bot to block swearwords. Malicious actors rarely face any consequences online. The parents also usually don't have a clue about what their kids are doing, nor how the platforms their kids use work, which means they are unable to teach their kids what to avoid.

I believe to solve these issues, this kind of behavior should come with actual consequences. However, I don't have high hopes this will help soon. I therefore believe education also plays a role, both for the parent and their children. Kids should learn about social norms for the internet and what to do when people disregard them, and parents should have the knowledge to help them. The platforms themselves should also take action, the amount of moderators on social media is pathetic. Facebook has millions of users but only has 54 moderators (spanning all their services including Instagram) to moderate posts in my country's language. Current social media is a breeding ground for disinformation, rage, and harassment, not because it's impossible not to, but because all major platforms have switched to an engagement based algorithm.

[–] DarkThoughts@kbin.social 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] quams69@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

I grabbed mossmans boobas in hl2 gmod vr the fbi are at my door help

[–] chitak166@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago

Tax dollars hard at work.

[–] stoly@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I'm not in the metaverse and wouldn't be in VR because of cost even if I were. So, question: what exactly is supposed to have happened here? Someone's avatar pushed someone else's avatar into a virtual corner?

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

In VR you can almost never actually get up in someone's face if you try either your body clips into there is because neither of you have an effective physical presence in the simulation (virtually no game goes that far with its realism) or you actually fade out because there is a comfort zone in the game.

Either way you cannot directly interact with someone. Most games will have hitboxes on the hands, but nowhere else on the body so the best that you can do would be to touch someone else's hands and it's not like they can feel it.

[–] Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (6 children)

Not even that, I can almost guarantee they don't have movable hit boxes. It was probably the classic COD thing of teabagging or simulated thrusting by moving back and forth while talking dirty over voice comms.

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[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago

a bunch of people sexually harassed a child, calling it "virtual sexual assault" is the clickbait headline that quotes one anonymous person's opinion

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[–] blazeknave@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

Remember when the Internet was new? Know how kids still get pedo'd now?

Setting precedent early is important. There will be billions of people in this soon enough and without regulation, it's Westworld.

[–] jpreston2005@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Everyone is focused on if there should be legal repercussions for this, and while that's valid, there's another point to make.

It's that sexual assault, rape, sexual harassment, etc. is so heinously awful, that even in this watered down, synthetic, polygon avatar VR version of it is enough to seriously harm someone.

Being made to feel as if you're worthless, and just a piece of meat to be ogled and used for others perverted pleasure, is so fucking terribly awful, that the Nintendo 64 version will leave you forever changed for the worse.

[–] GBU_28@lemm.ee 13 points 10 months ago (4 children)

It's so funny that we as society are totally fine with vr murder, but vr sexual harassment is "trauma".

[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 8 points 10 months ago

PTSD from being shot at in a VR game. Can't wait

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[–] MYCOOLNEJM@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 months ago (8 children)

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

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