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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

[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

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.

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 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.

What a joke.

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

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.

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

Oh for fucks sake

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.

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.

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