Now a gang-rape in metaverse: How sexual predators roam free in the virtual world

Is there any place where women and girls are safe? It’s a valid question as cases of rape and sexual abuse are on the rise even in the virtual world. The latest shocker comes from the United Kingdom, where police are investigating the first case of an alleged rape of a teenager in the metaverse. The girl was “sexually attacked” in a virtual reality game in the metaverse , an immersive digital world where you can interact and socialise through an online avatar using virtual reality headsets. What is the case of the UK teen? How common is digital rape? We explain. The virtual ‘gang-rape’ of UK girl The girl, who is under the age of 16, was gang-raped by online strangers in a virtual reality video game, according to a report in Daily Mail. Police are now investigating the case, reportedly the first virtual sexual offence in the UK. The girl is said to have been distraught. According to the police, she suffered “the same psychological and emotional trauma as someone who has been raped in the real world as the ‘VR” experience is designed to be completely immersive”, the report says. “This child experienced psychological trauma similar to that of someone who has been physically raped. There is an emotional and psychological impact on the victim that is longer term than any physical injuries,” a senior officer familiar with the case was quoted as saying by the news outlet. “It poses a number of challenges for law enforcement given current legislation is not set up for this.” The rise of ‘virtual rape’ Virtual rape refers to instances of sexual abuse that have taken place online, in the metaverse. While there is no physical attack involved, it is likely to cause psychological trauma and affect the mental health of victims. The case of the UK teen might be the first being investigated by the police in the country but it is not an isolated one. According to Ian Critchley, the child protection and abuse investigation lead of the UK national police chiefs’ council “the metaverse creates a gateway for predators to commit horrific crimes against children”. A senior police officer told the Daily Mail that sexual offending in the metaverse is now “rife”. In February 2022, London-based Nina Jane Patel spoke about how a gang of three to four avatars sexually harassed her within 60 seconds of joining Meta’s metaverse platform Horizon Venues. “They essentially, but virtually, gang-raped my avatar and took photos as I tried to get away,” Patel, co-founder and vice-president of metaverse research Kabuni Ventures, wrote in a post on Medium.com. “My physiological and psychological response was as though it happened in reality,” she recalled. Patel told CNBC-TV18 in an interview that she froze during the attack. She fumbled with the controllers while trying to use the safety features, which allow users to block and report. “But as I was asking them to ‘stop’, ‘go away’, I realised I needed to end this as their verbal harassment and sexual innuendos were getting increasingly aggressive,” she told the publication. She pulled off the virtual reality headset but said she could still hear her attackers laughing and voices coming through saying, “Don’t pretend you don’t like it.” Patel said that she did not know the identities or names of their avatars so she could not go back and report or block. [caption id=“attachment_13570712” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] A girl wears a virtual reality headset in Beijing. Cases of sexual assault in the metaverse are rising. Representational picture/Reuters[/caption] Cases of sexual assault and harassment are more common than we’d like to believe. And children and women are the only targets. In December 2021, journalist Hugo Rifkind recalled being sexually molested on his second visit to Horizon Worlds, a virtual reality game. In an article in The Times, he wrote that he was on his way to a virtual Billie Eilish concert with a friend when “this fairly creepy-looking bald guy runs up, bends double and starts pumping his cartoon hands at our cartoon crotches”. Research conducted by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCD), a British non-profit, in December 2021 found that there have been several instances of sexual harassment and assault in the metaverse. “It was clear from the outset of our research that extreme sexual content is common in the metaverse, and that manifests as sexual violence, too,” Callum Hood, head of research at CCD was quoted as saying by Vogue. “We witnessed a number of users carrying out virtual sexual harassment of other users and recorded evidence of users being targeted with rape threats.” Also read: How the online space for women is in a crisis and what needs to be done about it Punishment for ‘virtual rape and sexual assault’? In the UK, where the case of the teen is being investigated, there have been no prosecutions for sexual offences in the virtual world. The current legislation is unlikely to cover rape in the metaverse as sexual assault is defined in the Sexual Offences Act as the physical touching of another person sexually without their consent, according to the Daily Mail report. UK Home Secretary James Cleverly said that the UK teen has experienced “sexual trauma”, as he backed the investigation in the case. “I know it is easy to dismiss this as being not real, but the whole point of these virtual environments is they are incredibly immersive,” Cleverly told news outlet LBC. [caption id=“attachment_13570722” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] A woman plays a virtual reality game during a preview day ahead of the digital games fair Gamescom, in Cologne, Germany in 2022. File photo/Reuters[/caption] Experts the world over are worried that the virtual space could become a hub for sex offenders and call for governments to amend laws quickly. The chairman of the UK Association of Police and Crime Commissioners Donna Jones emphasised the need to update laws because “they have not kept pace with the risks of harm that are developing from artificial intelligence and offending on platforms like the metaverse”, the Daily Mail reports. Huzefa Tavawalla, head of the disruptive technologies practice group at Indian law firm Nishith Desai Associates, was quoted as saying by CNBC-TV18 in 2022 that it would be up to the organisations to roll out safety programmes. However, fixing criminal liability in the meta-universe, he said, would be difficult. There are challenges galore. Proving a sexual assault without physical touching would require changes in laws. The other difficulty is determining which law agency would have jurisdiction over such cases as the virtual avatars, both victims and perpetrators, could be from different countries. Meta’s response A spokesman for Meta, “The kind of behaviour described has no place on our platform, which is why for all users we have an automatic protection called personal boundary, which keeps people you don’t know a few feet away from you.” But is this enough to protect avatars from virtual predators? With inputs from agencies