Police investigate sexual abuse of girl’s avatar in the metaverse

[AsexualHealing]

https://news.sky.com/story/police-investigate-sexual-abuse-of-young-girls-avatar-in-the-metaverse-prompting-nspcc-warning-13041003

There’s no escape, is there?

I’ve read that article, and that was what actually raised the question for me. She said a male avatar forced one woman to perform a sex act on him, and another to (sorry) insert a knife into herself. But how? You force someone in real life by hurting them, which you can’t do virtually, or by threatening to hurt them- same. I don’t want to sound as though I’m dismissing what happened, but I don’t understand what did happen. How is a person forced to do something with an image they’re controlling, by an image controlled elsewhere by someone else? Are we basically saying that because the game is so immersive, and women’s fear of male violence so innate, the effect of seeing a man standing over you makes you freeze and comply in the same way as you would in real life?

The article says: 'Mr Bungle’s creator had hacked into a new bit of computer code so he could control the avatars of others online.'

I think, from the article, the abuser had hacked the women's avatars. It was the avatars that he made perform the acts, not the women, they were unable to regain control. I can only compare it to works IT remotely controlling your PC. I found that peculiar, like my machine was haunted. When it's unexpected, in an immersive environment with abuse and sexual elements it must be truly disturbing. Although physically, atm anyway, you won't be harmed.

Ah, ok, thai makes sense. I missed that line. And is that also what happened with the little girl?

This is awful.

But sort of a game allows you to act sexually?

You have a functioning penis etc?

Sorry I'm not familiar at all.

This is the argument that allows this nonsense to happen:

On the face of it - everyone has equal opportunity to afford 500gbp plus for the hardware and whatever looks like peanuts in comparison for gaming software. So there is no actual money to be made from allowing or restricting this nonsense and this perpetrator is a lone wolf misusing tech.

Insidiously, the early adopters who have stupid money to throw at this tend to come with baggage... without these early adopters the software cycle will not be long enough for more mundane things like food and furniture shopping apps to become mainstream. The software cycle here can be years long. Google "early adopters" for the explanatory curve.

The tech companies don't make a mint off this crap. If anything they make heavy losses during this initial adoption phase But remove it completely and the tech dies a certain long term death; Don't control the baggage of your early adopters and you die a reputational death. Applying PR and damage control is simply a business decision and a young girl gets to deal with the trauma.

And yes the metaverse is only avatars. For now at least. Thankfully.

This. So much this.

To put it simply there aren't any games that allow you to rape another player. (People won't like me saying this, but) this strikes me as a moral panic over something that isn't possible.

The games industry is rather hesitant to even program anything (consensually) sexual let alone sexual assault. The game would simply be refused classification.

What is likely here is something similar to "teabagging" where a fully clothed avatar crouches and stands repeatedly to simulate putting the avatar's testicles onto another player. There are no programmed testicles and there is no programmed "sexual assault" button.

The Times article about hacked code relates to another game decades ago. What is likely to have happened here is that someone simulates actions via hands (as genitals aren't programmed) and then the player over the microphone is saying that they are raping you. I would imagine that the most that they could do was to simulate masturbation.

It's unpleasant behaviour, but I think this is sensualist headlines with deliberately ambiguous details of what actually happened.

I’d rather resources were used on increasing the dismal conviction rate in the real world.

I think there's some value investigating this

Because what are those guys doing in real life? There might well be links.

This throws a little more light, although I suspect you need to have used the technology to have a real idea

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/01/03/raped-in-virtual-reality-metaverse-victim-blaming/

https://archive.ph/sAERb archive link

As an adult, this kind of trash has no effect: Pull plug and leave the wanker to it.

Having a child who still argues that their 'dad has the biggest car' get this treatment really doesn't get the same 'block and ignore' response.

It is not just unpleasant. It is a deeply despicable thing to do. The technology is moving towards physical sensations. Luckily the holy grail of neurological links has not yet been found. Having it defined appropriately will avoid these people getting light sentences when it's not just haptics.

The aim is to get the victim to feel a physical touch. It is beyond the pale.

@PatatiPatatras

Eh?

Haptic feedback, neurological feedback, physical touch?

All of these things don't exist in this game, and there isn't a sexual assault function that has been programmed.

It's deliberately sketchy on the details and people are reacting to what they assume to have happened, not what actually happened, and what is actually possible.

Yes, what you have imagined (which currently is only possible in the realms of science fiction) would be despicable, but at the moment we are talking about a game with cartoon avatars with no programmed sexual content.

Technology moves fast, though.

Children should not be allowed on this technology alone. (Most) people wouldn't let their 10 year old child walk around the town centre alone at night, going wherever they want, or leave their child out exploring the country at their whim.

Why parents let their children freely to roam the internet and now this 'meta-verse' is beyond me. You are literally allowing your child to interact with a plethora of strangers, and to explore every single idea humanity has ever had.

It is a disaster waiting to happen.

I'm a mother of children, I keep trying to access some mammalian mother defence system, I think 'Ok, a bear or a wolf is no longer a predator, but what is a danger to my young, and how to I mitigate it'

Some on the list are; paedophiles, porn, and cult / thought-control. The internet plays a big part in all of these issues.

Silverbirchtwo · Yesterday 09:30

This does happen in children's VR games, men join the games pretending to be children and groom the children playing, they may also try to get information to meet them in the real world.

My daughter has been on Roblox since lockdown and recently got onto Minecraft. I'm constantly drumming into her not to give details, or say that she's a girl.

Re: the 20 percent of young kids with their own VR headsets I would have been shocked by this 3-5 years ago but not now. It’s really taken off in recent years and I am aware of two children in this age group in my own family who have one (used under close supervision and heavy restriction from their parents), and many of their friends do too.

I agree. If this is happening as the papers are presenting, then someone has performed a complicated hack of the servers and reprogrammed the game.

That is not impossible however it is unlikely, and what @PaperWalkAndTalk has said above is almost certainly what's going on.

Sexual harassment through spoken words, crude gestures etc in online gaming has been prevalent since the advent of the technology. Virtual reality takes it to a new level but there is still - to my knowledge - no game that allows a playable character to rape another character. Even the perpetually awful GTA doesn't go that far.

I think we need updated sexual harassment legislation to deal with the above, but technology will move faster than the law can, sadly. Should sexual harassment be classified as rape if it's done in a virtual reality rather than in a regular game like a MMORPG? It's going to be a rather complicated legal argument and we'll probably see some very interesting cases tested in court in the coming years.