Police investigate virtual sex assault on girl's avatar

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 163 points –
Police investigate virtual sex assault on girl's avatar
bbc.com

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.

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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.

It's right there in the quick access menu, a single button press away at any time.

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.

I'm talking about VR devices, which don't run Windows, for example using any Meta headset, App developers are required to make in-app reporting accessible when you press menu and select Report abuse from the universal menu. The report abuse button is one button click away at all times.

Okay, great. Now what about all other games on all other systems where women get constantly sexually harassed? Any solutions there?

Thread is about VR, which is specifically what I am talking about.

Ah, ok, so you're just saying that every VR device ever made in the future for perpetuity will have a block and report button despite no legal requirement to have one.

No, as stated I'm talking specifically about the most popular headsets made by Meta. I believe Pico and WMR headsets have the same system in place but I haven't used either in a while, WMR is being canned so not really relevant.

Okay, but this is about establishing a legal framework. If there was a legal framework requiring a block and report button on every VR gaming system, perfect.