Sexual assault has already started in Meta’s Horizon Worlds metaverse | Hacker News Reader

Sexual assault has already started in Meta’s Horizon Worlds metaverse

euronews.com

13 pointstype08 comments

“Not only was I groped last night, but there were other people there who supported this behaviour which made me feel isolated.”

Meta reviewed the incident, the company determined that the beta tester did not use the safety features built into Horizon Worlds, which include the ability to block someone from interacting with you.

There are also options limiting how close players can get to you for this reason. An easy solution would be to just set the default option beyond arms reach, and let the player lower it, instead of the other way around.

I personally would not consider this as sexual assault, even if I was writing a click-bait Title.

Here's why I think it should still be considered sexual assault:

First off, a lot of people (women much moreso) are subject to sexual assault, catcalling, etc, in their day-to-day lives. This is horrible - but a fact. This _is_ the world we still live in, women fear for their lives every day. Any man who denies this lacks any kind of perspective, and in my opinion a denial of this statement should be ignored.

If, and I hope we all agree, sexual assault bad, and I hope we also all agree, that nobody should be subject to that in real life, then it should not be acceptable for this to happen in VR.

> There are also options limiting how close players can get to you for this reason. An easy solution would be to just set the default option beyond arms reach, and let the player lower it, instead of the other way around.

While not as blunt or rude (nor do I think you've said this with any malice), this is workaround is akin to the "don't dress that way", "don't walk around at night", responses victims of sexual assault often get. What if this person likes players to get close? They should not have to worry about their "closeness" settings, much like women in real life should not have to worry about the way they dress - the assault itself just should not be happening in the first place.

It's horrible to see someone horribly raped like that. I think due to men perhaps we just need stuff like original women only media and media companies.

The problem is only going to get worse, and this poor woman is going to be traumatized for the rest of her life. Who is going to pay for her PTSD?

How is this any different from a person groping your avatar in second life? The display is just different. If this is tantamount to assault then the zombies in the last VR game I played need to be behind bars. And the kids in VR chat that do silly things to others.

You can take the headset off at any time. Unless of course, Poe’s law. But I think I’m just an outlier of opinion here. I’ve used VR heavily since oculus dk1 days.

I think folks are buying into marketing too heavily. It’s just a different display medium

Virtual assault should be outlawed like depictions of under age abuse. Start prosecuting and throwing people in jail.

Too bad it's virtually impossible.

I now get why Zuck has tied Oculus devices to Facebook accounts, it's a lot easier to corporate-doxx people who might do bad stuff using their Oculus. Although I guess some people could plausibly claim it was someone else using their device (people living with others) and the law usually needs a definitive suspect. If it even reaches the courts, with the broken American justice system...

Meta could have virtual prisons.

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