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.
I think the first half of your comment is more appropriate. The second half doesn’t really hold water because you can apply that to anything. For instance: Plenty of kids were hit by their parents and didn’t turn out terrible. Does that mean we should be cool with parents hitting their kids?
I think this is obviously not the same as being sexually assaulted in person, but this is also new to me, so I’m going to kind of sit back and try to learn more before deciding something pretty consequential in the long term unilaterally based off a single headline.
My comment should not be the final word here. It’s half serious, half joke. I do think we need laws in place, especially for the egregious offenses, but in the mean time some strict moderation of these platforms is needed.