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.

  • Flying Squid
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    106 months ago

    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.

    • Lath
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      416 months ago

      You’re joking right? Read about Ellen Page and the Beyond:Two Souls controversy.

      Shit’s already here. It’s not just a little silly anymore. And with those AI deep fakes floating around, anyone can become a pornstar without even knowing about it.

      People already killing themselves for fake rape allegations and social media pariah-ism, what now that fake porn with you in it can be made at any time?

      This shit’s a disaster in the making, not just a little silly.

      • Cyborganism
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        216 months ago

        This is the best comment in this thread so far. You make some excellent points.

        What that girl experienced is definitely a form of harassment. And the VR part just made it more real than simple texts or photos. Which I think should be considered as a form of psychological assault.

        And how fucked up must men and rape culture be that a girl can’t even feel safe in a fucking virtual reality setting. Seriously, that’s a big WTF. This is just sad.

    • Cornpop
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      16 months ago

      Absolutely not! That’s absurd. You can’t virtually rape someone or virtually assault someone. You can always just look away, remove the headset, or turn off the pc. You can always instantly remove yourself from the situation. You are never in a position of danger. You are never in any way being harmed. The police should arrest the person that called them for wasting their time.

      • Flying Squid
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        226 months ago

        You can always hang up the phone if you’re getting repeatedly harassed on the phone too. That doesn’t make it any less harassment. Of course it doesn’t rise to the level of physical rape. That doesn’t mean it isn’t (intentionally) psychologically damaging. And, as I said, it needs to be done before it gets a lot more immersive, not because of the way things are right now. It could very well not be so easy to instantly remove yourself in the future.

        • Cornpop
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          -76 months ago

          I have a feeling that this isint the case of people repeatedly targeting an individual every time they are online. Seems like it was something that happened once, and that’s not harassment. That’s joking around.

          • Flying Squid
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            46 months ago

            I’m not talking about this case in particular. I’m talking about the need to establish a legal framework before it becomes such a problem that everyone wonders why there isn’t a law against it.

            • Cornpop
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              -36 months ago

              We have managed fine this far. Nothing new. Police can stay out of video games.

              • Flying Squid
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                26 months ago

                Yes, we managed this far at he immersiveness and realism level of games so far. Eventually, and this is really the goal for a lot of people, games will be so realistic and immersive that you’ll feel like you’re actually there. And that is a big problem when it comes to sexual harassment. So maybe we should make sure that we’re prepared.

                  • Flying Squid
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                    26 months ago

                    I’m not sure why that means you can’t use it to effectively sexually harass someone. Women get sexually harassed on games now.

            • Cornpop
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              06 months ago

              You can’t be raped through a screen though

              • Cyborganism
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                -16 months ago

                No. But a simulation of a rape can leave you feeling the same psychological trauma. Or at the very least feel completely disgusted with yourself and can lead to serious depression and maybe worse.

                Why is it so hard for you guys to understand that people have the right to feel safe, even online, and not feel like there are people out there with a rapist mentality?

                • Cornpop
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                  6 months ago

                  That’s absolutely ridiculous and honestly offensive to compare an actual rape and someone’s game avitar getting too close to your game avitar. What a joke. You’re never in danger in front of a screen. They can’t reach through the screen and touch you. What a fucking weird take on reality you have. You do have a right to “feel safe” it’s called turn the game off if it bothers you that much. Pathetic.

                  • Cyborganism
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                    06 months ago

                    What’s pathetic is to not even condone the men who harassed her and blame the girl for not leaving a game she was enjoying harmlessly.

          • Kobol
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            26 months ago

            Hate to tell you but things can be considered harassment even if “it only happened once”

            • Cornpop
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              6 months ago

              Is this your first time in a video game? People seem to think that their feelings are the police’s problem. It’s weird af. You don’t have the right to never be annoyed or upset.

      • verysoft
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        6 months ago

        Yeah but I am assuming you are an adult?
        Kids get pulled into things like this and dont just remove the headset, they are much more malleable than a grown adult.

        The question is, shouldnt their parents be supervising them? Perhaps their parents dont even know about these online worlds filled with people? Did the parents buy them VR without any research into what you can do with it? There’s a lot of education that needs doing for both children and adults concerning online safety, more and more so as the online world advances.

        • Cornpop
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          36 months ago

          Little Kids just shouldn’t be using this stuff, or should at least be supervised. Young adults can handle trash talk and gamer bs lol. This is such a non issue that people are just grasping at straws to try and make an issue it’s insane.

          • verysoft
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            6 months ago

            It’s an issue if kids can get a hold of this stuff and access it, yes. Parenting is the main problem, I agree, but not every parent is competent enough to look out for this kind of stuff, also this stuff is often heavily marketed towards children.

            I think adults sexually harrassing children online is an issue, if you don’t, then I don’t know what to say.

            • Cornpop
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              46 months ago

              I mean what is sexual harassment in a game? Saying something vulgar? Getting close to their avitar? That’s not sexual harassment to me.

      • kase
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        16 months ago

        I don’t know if this is true, but based on what I could find on google, cyber bullying is illegal in some places, including most US states (again, not sure about that, please correct me if I’m wrong). My point is, it’s not a new idea to get the law involved in a situation regarding online harassment. A victim could probably avoid it by logging off, but the legal precedent seems to be that they shouldn’t be expected to. That seems reasonable to me, just considering I wouldn’t tell someone to ‘just leave’ an irl space because someone was harassing them.

        I agree in that I wouldn’t call what happened here ‘rape’ in a legal sense, but if you’re saying that something is inherently harmless because it’s done online, I strongly disagree. Otherwise, sorry if I misunderstood.

      • Flying Squid
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        196 months ago

        “I think they shouldn’t have worn such a short skirt.”

        How about we don’t blame people for others sexually harassing or assaulting them?

        Especially when they’re trying to have some harmless fun.

          • Flying Squid
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            56 months ago

            And if the game doesn’t have that option? There’s no legal requirement to have that option. Maybe there should be?

              • Flying Squid
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                36 months ago

                I have never seen a ‘block and report’ feature on any OS. And there is certainly no requirement for games to use it if there were.

                  • Flying Squid
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                    16 months ago

                    Right where in what quick access menu? I don’t even know what you’re talking about, but I have no idea why you think some ‘report’ button on, for example, Windows, would send a report to the game company who would then act on the sexual harassment. It’s also certainly not universal to all OSes and consoles.