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.
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The impact of the attack on the girl’s avatar was said to be heightened because of the immersive nature of the VR experience.
Relax, no one here is saying that rape is ok. What people have issue with is actually calling it “virtual rape”. It’s stupid and pretty offensive to actual rape victims. Trying to classify it as a sexual offense in legal terms doesn’t make any sense. It’s all just avatars and animations. It would be possible for 10 year old boys to “virtually rape” grown women or even for 10 year old girls to virtually rape grown men. What’s next? Assaulting people by showing them images? Fraud charges for rick rolling someone?
Common sense approach is to say that if this would happen repeatedly to a user and it would be intentionally directed at them in order to make them leave the game it could be considered harassment. Same as sending someone offensive messages. That’s it.