A woman claimed she was virtually groped by a gang of male avatars in Meta's metaverse, report says
Note: Not satire.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
A 43-year-old British woman claims she was virtually groped by a gang of male avatars in Meta's metaverse earlier this month, The Mail on Sunday first reported.
Nina Jane Patel, who works as the vice president of research for a rival metaverse, said in a Medium post that she was "verbally and sexually harassed" by three or four male avatars in Meta's Horizon Venues.
The London-based mother said that within a minute of joining the virtual world's lobby earlier this month, male avatars began harassing her.
According to Patel's Medium post, the avatars touched her character's body inappropriately, made sexual comments, and took screenshots for several minutes.
After trying to flee the virtual world, Patel told The Mail on Sunday that she had to tear off her virtual reality (VR) headset to bring an end to the ordeal. She told the paper that she has been suffering from anxiety ever since.
"We're sorry to hear this happened," a Meta spokesperson told Insider by email. "We want everyone in Horizon Venues to have a positive experience, and easily find the safety tools that can help in a situation like this - and help us investigate and take action."
The spokesperson noted that Patel did not use the platform's reporting tools, allowing users to block, mute, and report anyone near them. Patel told Insider that she wasn't able to do so quickly enough.
"Horizon Venues should be safe, and we are committed to building it that way," the Meta statement continued. "We will continue to make improvements as we learn more about how people interact in these spaces, especially when it comes to helping people report things easily and reliably."
Horizon Venues is a digital experience, which Meta is still developing, that allows people to use a virtual reality headset to create avatars that can watch online events together.
Last month, Insider's Stephen Jones reported that another woman said a stranger also groped her on one of Meta's other digital platforms — Horizon Worlds. A Meta internal investigation concluded that the victim hadn't enabled safety features.
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I wonder if her avatar was dressed immodestly, thus unfairly enticing her cyber offenders.
This is so strange it kind of reminds me of a woman I once knew online on a very early social media site called My Yearbook. When she wanted to be alone, she told me that she would open a chat room and not give out the entry password to anyone. I guess it didn’t occur to her that she could just turn off her computer. Although, in this case I’m not sure who is more warped - the woman who wrote this article about her avatar being molested, or the men who were molesting her avatar.
The whole Meta universe is strange to me. I don't understand it
exactly. I don't get it.
I could say the same for the crook zuckerberg.
I dont get it either, and I dont want to get it.
Maybe this is where incels go to blow off steam and harass the avatar women who won’t date them in VR.
How do they know they were men....
They looked like men in VR, I guess? I suppose they could have been created (born?) with an anatomy that didn’t match their future avatar identity. That made my head hurt.
If one can create an avatar, it seems like people could create whatever they wanted.
The men were most likely like the men in the movie Surrogates (Bruce Willis). The surrogates of the men were handsome and total eye candy where their operators were fat, smelly, and unattractive for the most part.
If you have been metagroped in the metaverse, please complete a metacomplaint, which can be metasearched in the metaforms section of the metahub. Please allow 7-10 business days for the metapolice to respond.
Okay, on a more serious note:
Someone above made a passing reference, but here it is in the article...victim blaming. What safety features are there? Does a minion pop out of you, and devour the would be groper's metasoul, sending them to metahell? (That's an idea Meta) I'm still not sure how you get virtually groped. Is Meta like Ready Player One, where the users can purchase suits that actually stimulate the body?
Is she an actual victim of some form of sexual misconduct in the real world? If so, I can see where such a thing might be traumatic. If not, I'm sorry. Extremely annoying, yes. But, for this to be cause for a terror filled run, through a virtual world...? Unplugging seems like a quick and easy fix, or logging out, anything.
Is Meta like Ready Player One, where the users can purchase suits that actually stimulate the body?
You just know that the porn industry is going to be all over that technology once it is refined. Gives no meaning to the term “fuck me pumps”.
Movies coming to life. Demolition Man with virtual sex...
That is one of my fav movies and I loved that scene.
An entire generation of adolescent boys will be ruined.
{chuckle} adolescent girls as well..