Police in the United Kingdom are conducting a landmark investigation into the alleged sexual assault of a teenage girl’s online avatar, marking the first sex crime probe launched into the Metaverse.
As first reported by The Daily Mail, the victim, who has only been identified as a girl under 16, was wearing a virtual reality headset for an immersive gaming experience when her character was “raped” by a group of adult male players. According to police reports, multiple unknown strangers approached the girl’s avatar and began touching it with their own.
The unconventional assault left the girl physically unharmed but emotionally traumatized, experiencing emotional distress similar to a real-world rape survivor, police sources stated.
Learn the benefits of becoming a Valuetainment Member and subscribe today!
“There is an emotional and psychological impact on the victim that is longer-term than any physical injuries,” a senior officer assigned to the case told the Daily Mail.
Details of the “assault” have not been made public in an effort to protect the victim, but given the full sensory immersion associated with VR gaming, the girl likely experienced a disturbing first-person view while it took place.
The game the victim was playing at the time was not named, but the police report indicates that it may have been Meta’s “Horizon Worlds,” an open-ended, online social and gaming space created by Facebook parent company Meta Platforms. An accompanying statement from Meta denounced the behavior and emphasized the game’s built-in personal boundaries for players.
(RELATED: New Jersey High School Devastated by AI-Generated Nude Scandal)
The UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children estimates that 15 percent of the country’s children between five and ten years old have used a VR headset, and 6 percent of that group uses one daily.
At the same time, sources from multiple countries have raised concerns about the prevalence of sexually explicit content spreading across the Metaverse. Multiple sexual crimes in “Horizon Worlds” have been reported since it went online in late 2021, but none have ever been prosecuted given the virtual component of the offenses.
In this latest incident, authorities in the UK fear that existing sexual assault laws, which require non-consensual physical contact, will not allow the case to be prosecuted even if the perpetrators are identified.
At the same time, many are questioning why police are dedicating time and resources to virtual rapes when they are already facing a backlog of real-life sex crimes that have gone largely unaddressed amid the UK’s surge in illegal boat migrants.
However, investigators are emphasizing that virtual crimes are still to be taken seriously despite lacking a physical component.
“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,” British Home Secretary James Cleverly said. “And we’re talking about a child here, and a child has gone through sexual trauma.”
Cleverly also argued that anyone willing to sexually harass a minor in a video game “may well be someone that could go on to do terrible things in the physical realm.”
Connor Walcott is a staff writer covering politics, culture, and business for Valuetainment.com. Follow Connor on X (Twitter).
Add comment