The incident in a virtual world reportedly left the under-16-year-old traumatised.

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.

  • whaleross@lemmy.world
    334·
    10 months ago

    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.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
      51·
      10 months ago

      I feel guilty for that, I really do, but this description is very funny for me in a way a South Park episode could be.

      • whaleross@lemmy.world
        1·
        10 months ago

        It is absurd and funny, I agree, but only because it is not representative of what actually happened.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
          1·
          10 months ago

          Yeah, I had and sometimes still have very strong feelings over much smaller unpleasantries in the Web, so it is bad.

    • FluorideMind@lemmy.world
      21·
      10 months ago

      No one is down playing it, it’s being up played by being labeled sexual assault. At worst this should be considered harassment.

      • whaleross@lemmy.world
        2·
        10 months ago

        Plenty of comments here alone dismiss everything about it.

        We, as a seasoned internet nerd community and the gamers amongst us in particular, may have been exposed to edgy and lewd behaviour online since forever, not that it is a good thing.

        It should not be considered normal that it happens everywhere online and it should not be expected that everyone should be as cynical and desensitised as we are.

        But yeah. Assault is the wrong charge. It is sexual harassment. And it should be taken seriously.