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.
this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2024
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So...many...teabags
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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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.
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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crouch crouch crouch
Dip dip potato chip
It's a little silly at this stage, but I think there needs to be a legal framework around this thing now because eventually, our games will be realistic enough and immersive enough that this could become a serious issue.
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It sounds ridiculous that they assaulted an avatar. I think it is the wrong take. The avatar is just the medium. The target was obviously the person behind the avatar. It's like saying that threats over text message is assaulting her phone.
Ssssh it's okay iphone. Don't listen to them. I know you were just protecting me from the bullies in high school
I didn't know how to feel about the headline when I read it, is it possible to do that? I still don't know. It's not really for me to decide how SHE feels either. It just sounds.... Weird? And not possible? I don't know.
Regardless, in my mind, it depends on what the action was. If I send a text to your phone to hack it, then I guess I'm "assaulting your phone" but if the phone is the medium used to get to you then obviously it's towards you.
And this can all be made moot by the software devs with an input box "keep non-friends N meters away". Its all tech and virtual. Whatever she has a problem with can be an option to toggle for her.
Example from the article what it can look like:
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".
So, I guess the appropriate terminology would be sexual harassment of the person by virtual sexual assault on their avatar in the VR space, or something like that.
I can imagine for an innocent person unprepared for it to be ganged and surrounded by deviants in VR sounds like it could be a proper traumatic experience. I don't think there should be downplaying or normalizing this kind of experience for the sole reason that pervs are to be expected online. There is no reason to sink expectations of society to the lowest uncommon deranged denominator.
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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.
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This is sexual harrassment, not assault. It's still disgusting, but there's no reasonable expectation of harm. They can always take off the headset.
And yet it's completely possible to kill someone with cyber bullying. Trauma is trauma.
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Imagine if someone had killed them in a VR game
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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.
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.
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VR is immersive, but it isn't that immersive, especially when it comes to user feedback
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Please don't kill people in Counter strike or they might get PTSD
Let's wait for the feel suits to arrive before equating virtual "crimes" to real ones, especially in a medium where you can just block anyone, at most this should go in the same place a death threat via text goes for now.
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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?
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.
'Assaulting someone in a VR game is still assault especially if they never consented.'
Sarcasm?
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.
What a joke.
Real crimes are being compared to vr "crimes". Next will be thought crimes.
I just feel like this would set a negative precedent for interactions in online games. Idk tho, not a lawyer.
Oh for fucks sake
Just one count of assault? I've been teabagged online more times than I can count.
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.
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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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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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.
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