News

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.

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.

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

[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.

We live in a clown world.

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

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.

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.

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.

What a joke.

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

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

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?

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Tax dollars hard at work.

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?

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.

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.

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