A 21-year-old researcher's avatar was sexually assaulted in Meta's virtual reality platform Horizon Worlds, campaigners have said.
Corporate accountability group SumOfUs, for whom the researcher works, said it shows that Meta needs better plans to mitigate such practices in the metaverse, BBC reported.
SumOfUs asserted that virtual assaults can be intensely traumatic. The group's campaigns director Vicky Wyatt told the BBC Tech Tent podcast, "It still counts, it still has a real impact on users."
According to the BBC report, the footage of the incident shows two male avatars in the same room as the researcher, one of whom is observing while the other appears very close to her. The avatars make lewd comments and share a virtual bottle of drink.
Horizon Worlds told the the publication there were safety tools to help people have a "positive experience". Adding that Meta had not yet seen the full SumOfUs report, a spokesperson told the BBC that the firm wanted everyone in Horizon Worlds to access the safety procedures "and help us investigate and take action".
The platform is currently available to users in the US and Canada. Avatars in Horizon Worlds have a cartoonish appearance.
This, however, is not the only incident of its kind in the metaverse. Earlier this year, Nina Jane Patel felt confined and under threat as the male avatars closed in, intimidating her with verbal abuse, touching her avatar against her will and photographing the incident.
The abuse took place in a virtual world but it felt real to her, and this kind of story is causing severe headaches for architects of the metaverse.
"I entered the shared space and almost immediately three or four male avatars came very close to me, so there was a sense of entrapment," Patel told AFP.
"Their voices started verbally and sexually harassing me, with sexual innuendos," said the London-based entrepreneur.
"They touched and they groped my avatar without my consent. And while they were doing that, another avatar was taking selfie photos."
Patel, whose company is developing child-friendly metaverse experiences, says it was "nothing short of sexual assault".
Her story and others like it have prompted soul-searching over the nature of harassment in the virtual world, and a search for an answer to the question: can an avatar suffer sexual assault?
(With inputs from AFP)
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