Rape attempts recorded in Meta’s virtual metaverse

The non-profit organization SumOfUs has released a report titled «Metaverse: Another Cesspool of Toxic Content,» in which it described a case of «gang rape» in the Meta-owned Horizon Worlds metaverse.

The report contains a link to a video that, according to the researchers, shows what happened to the victim’s avatar from her point of view. In the video, you can see the male avatar approaching the female researcher very close, while the other avatar stands by and watches what happens. The two avatars then pass a bottle to each other. Two male voices can also be heard in the video making lewd comments.

The researcher was «brought to a separate room where she was raped by a user who kept asking her to turn around so he could do it from behind and the users outside the window could see it.» «All the while, another user in the room was watching and passing around a bottle of vodka,» the report says.

Despite the fact that the incident took place in virtual reality, the researcher did not feel the best. She noted that her controller vibrated when the men’s avatars touched her, meaning that she experienced «physical sensations as a result of her online activity.» «One part of my brain was thinking: 'What the hell is going on?', another part of my brain was thinking that this is not a real body, and another part of my brain was thinking that this is important research for all of us,» she said.