Mother says she was virtually groped by three male characters within seconds of entering Facebook's online world Metaverse

[PrincessNikla]

On a visit this month, the mother-of-four entered the ‘lobby’ – a virtual space serving as an entry point. But within seconds she was pursued by the men’s avatars, who groped her, subjected her to a stream of sexual innuendo and took screen shots of the attack for several minutes as she tried to flee.

She had to tear off her headset – which covers her eyes and allows her to see the metaverse as her avatar sees it – to end the ordeal.

While she could not actually feel the avatars’ hands, Mrs Patel has suffered from anxiety since the attack – and fears for the safety of her three teenage girls and other women in this lawless virtual world.

She said: ‘I entered the Horizon Venues metaverse as an avatar who looked just like me – middle-aged, blonde and dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved top.

‘The space you enter is a lobby, like a theatre foyer. Within 60 seconds, three male avatars – who all had male voices – came towards me and touched me inappropriately.

‘Before I knew what was happening, they were taking screen shots of them touching my avatar, both my upper and lower body. While doing that, they said things like, “Don’t pretend you don’t love it.”

‘I tried to move away but they followed me. I didn’t know who these people were or have the time to stay and investigate.’

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10455417/Mother-43-avatar-groped-three-male-characters-online-Metaverse.html

I haven't been on there, so cannot comment on how often this happens and if she was unlucky or if it happens a lot. I agree that the 'men' (if they were men as they were avatars) were completely out of order.

I totally agree it is horrible, but 'an ordeal' ? 'suffered from anxiety' since the attack? How hard would it be to just take off your headset to get out of it?

’I think there is a terrible irony in the way sone posters are attacking and piling on the op in defence of this woman’s feelings.‘

I understand what you mean but it’s often other women who take the ‘why are you making such a fuss’ approach when women talk about their experiences of male behaviour. No one is actually shocked that boys and men behave this way online - it’s so commonplace.

@Hospedia

This reminds me of Marina Abramovich's artwork Rhythm where she stood in a room and told the audience they could do anything to her. They cut her and assaulted her. One tried to rape her, another held a gun to her head

It reminds too of the robot at an electronics show (Samantha? Stephanie?) that was molested by groups of men. It's fingers were broken, it's "skin" had been torn, it had been bitten, was damaged in various places, and was "heavily soiled".

Oh yes I remember that too. Same thing really. They wouldn't do it if the doll belonged to them because those dolls are expensive. But if someone else is paying they can hurt and grope and assault to their sick perverted hearts' content.

@Hospedia

"She should have pressed the exit button" - is this the VR version of "she should have just said no"?

you cant escape from sexual assault in real life but you can escape from some dickheads on a vr by taking it off

Sometimes, I feel as though the World has gone mad.

@XenoBitch

I use VR, and stuff like this happens all the time. The perpetrators are often children. I am fed up with parents using it a baby sitting device, and not knowing what their kids are up to.

The app this happened in is not the "metaverse". It is basically a lobby, with various rooms containing streaming videos coming off of it.

If someone approaches you, and you re not comfortable with it, you can activate a safe zone, which removes you from the room and lets you report any nastiness. This lady will have gone through the tutorial on how to do that before she would have been allowed to leave her home space.

It sounds like your experience is unusual. Every article about Meta (and every research conducting on other online forums) it's adult men being abusive not children. There are also adult men targeting children because Meta doesn't have age controls. There have been a few articles about Meta and the lack of safeguarding. It's a misogynists, abusers and paedophile's paradise. And it's time government's caught up with the abuse on social media and held the companies responsible if they're not going to provide adequate safeguards.

@Hospedia

Why are you wanting to minimise this womans feelings on it rather than being angry about the men who thought it was acceptable behaviour?

Exactly.

YABU.
Sounds bloody intimidating to me, and like an assault!
As if that's easy as '' just take your headset off ''

’I think there is a terrible irony in the way sone posters are attacking and piling on the op in defence of this woman’s feelings.‘

I think there’s a terrible irony that disagreeing with the op is described as “attacking and piling on”.
Whereas the op is dismissing men saying vile sexual things to a woman as something she has mo right to be upset about.

YABU. And I voted the wrong way because I wasnt expecting the victim blaming comment at the end of OP's post.

It sounds emotionally very similar to getting a dirty phone call back when I was a teenager and it was all landlines.

I wasn't in any immediate physical danger. I could, and did, put the phone down. Neither of those facts makes it trivial. It was unexpected and I was a bit scared and shaken.

You can revote by pressing the other one.

Yes, disturbing and it takes a while for your brain to process and catch up with what is happening. It’s like disbelief paralyses you.

Virtual reality is designed to feel 'real'. In fact VR events are so good at eliciting the same response as in real life (e.g. fear) that studies show that VR can be used as exposure therapy to treat anxiety and PTSD.

It would hardly be surprising if she momentarily froze and didn't remove her headset straight away.

Even without the immersive experience, it's must have been like being told by several men 'the thought of assaulting a woman who looks like you is funny to me.' I think most women would feel anxious if they suddenly started receiving messages like that, even online!

That was in reply to BlackAmericanoNoSugar

[quote Clymene]This reminds me of Marina Abramovich's artwork Rhythm where she stood in a room and told the audience they could do anything to her. They cut her and assaulted her. One tried to rape her, another held a gun to her head.

They forgot she was a human being.

The article below is very distressing:

lonewolfmag.com/most-terrifying-work-of-art-passivity/[/quote]
@Clymene I hadn’t read that article but had heard of Rhythm 0. It is shocking and I do wonder how different the public would have reacted if the artist was male.

@PrincessNikla I totally agree it is horrible, but 'an ordeal' ? 'suffered from anxiety' since the attack? How hard would it be to just take off your headset to get out of it?

It was an ordeal to her. She obviously feels that it has caused her anxiety. You may have felt differently but you are not her.

@XenoBitch

I use VR, and stuff like this happens all the time. The perpetrators are often children. I am fed up with parents using it a baby sitting device, and not knowing what their kids are up to.

The app this happened in is not the "metaverse". It is basically a lobby, with various rooms containing streaming videos coming off of it.

If someone approaches you, and you re not comfortable with it, you can activate a safe zone, which removes you from the room and lets you report any nastiness. This lady will have gone through the tutorial on how to do that before she would have been allowed to leave her home space.

When you panic or are distressed you often forget what the rational response is. Think this is quite minimising.

I don't think anyone would be dimissing it if three random men had called her on the phone & made sexual remarks. Just because it happened online doesn't make it any different.

@BlackAmericanoNoSugar

It sounds emotionally very similar to getting a dirty phone call back when I was a teenager and it was all landlines.

I wasn't in any immediate physical danger. I could, and did, put the phone down. Neither of those facts makes it trivial. It was unexpected and I was a bit scared and shaken.

Yes exactly @BlackAmericanoNoSugar

It still leaves you feeling violated even though you know you're not physically actually at risk.

Just when you think you've read it all..

While something like this happening would be very distressing it is Daily Fail article and they are among those very keen to deter people from using the internet because waa, it's full of sexual deviants and allows the lower orders to communicate with each other away from the control of their betters... So the report may be exaggerated and include factual errors - as PP are saying, users of the system are given advice on how to deal with poor behaviour from other users...

If it was a phone call, then thats a real life connection.

Every time the phone rings, you would be anxious and unhappy.

With vr (and gaming) there is no link between you and the real world, you are not in physical danger. You can change your character, the names, etc.

Obviously i would rather be somewhere this didn't have to happen.

If I was in charge of vr, I would make everyone go in a world with no other real for x time and see how they behaved, and also randomly do this as well so you could get the perpetrators who do this.

I wonder if there is training on how not to be abusive online before being let out into the metaverse- or is the attitude of throwing hands up in the air, "ah well, here's a shield/bubble/exit button, perverts gonna pervert" the only tactic?

How is that place any fun at all? Sounds like the 7th circle of hell.

@QuiteAtALoss

I wonder if there is training on how not to be abusive online before being let out into the metaverse- or is the attitude of throwing hands up in the air, "ah well, here's a shield/bubble/exit button, perverts gonna pervert" the only tactic?

How is that place any fun at all? Sounds like the 7th circle of hell.

It does a bit. Anything goes

So men are freely acting out their sick fantasies online but the woman is overreacting. Ffs.
But she can leave, but it's not real, but she shouldn't complain.
I despair, I really do.

I agree with you OP. It's probably my age, but I really can't fathom how someone can be traumatised by a pretend event that didn't actually happen in real life. It's like being traumatised by Tom being hit over the head by Jerry when you are watching cartoons.

Yeah.

The first place that opens up a live virtual rape and torture zone will make a lot of money from memberships.

We'll probably see articles extolling the virtues of the liberation of the women workers who have to log on and be virtually assaulted for 8 hour shifts to earn a living. "I love how the job saves me commuting."