It took 60 seconds for Nina Jane Patel to be sexually assaulted in the metaverse. “A group of male avatars surrounded me and started to grope my avatar while taking selfies,” she recalls. “I tried to move away but they followed me, laughing and shouting. They were relentless.” Patel, a psychotherapist and metaverse researcher, swiftly took her headset off. “As I moved away, they yelled: ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t love it; this is why you came here.’”
Explaining the metaverse is like explaining Google to someone in the 1950s. Often referred to as “an embodied online world”, it is a 3D extension of the internet, comprising a series of virtual spaces where, by strapping on a VR headset or a pair of AR glasses, you can move, communicate and consume everything as you would in real life.
Currently, there is no fully formed, interoperable metaverse, so to speak. But there are a number of independent virtual environments bringing us closer to this brave new immersive world. Among them are Horizon Worlds (not yet available in the UK) and Horizon Venues, both launched by Meta last year; Patel was assaulted in the latter.
Made by Oculus, which is also owned by Meta, the Horizon apps offer users access to a vast range of virtual activities by way of a Facebook login and a £299 headset. There are gigs, escape rooms and even “intergalactic trains”, whatever that means. After creating an avatar from the hips up (they don’t yet have legs), users move through this space in real time, mingling among other headset-wearing folk, who could be sobbing next to you in a virtual cinema while sitting in their living room on the other side of the world. The potential benefits of this technology are exponential. But, as is becoming increasingly clear, so are the dangers.
Research conducted by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCD) in December found there had been 100 potential violations of Meta’s policies for virtual reality in the space of 11 hours and 30 minutes. In addition to sexual harassment and assault, abusive behaviour highlighted in the report included racism, bullying, threats of violence, and “content mocking the 9/11 terror attacks”.
“It was clear from the outset of our research that extreme sexual content is common in the metaverse, and that manifests as sexual violence, too,” says Callum Hood, head of research at CCD. “We witnessed a number of users carrying out virtual sexual harassment of other users and recorded evidence of users being targeted with rape threats.” Among them is immersive media specialist Catherine Allen, who was in the Horizon Venues lobby trying to work out which event to go to when she was approached by a fellow female avatar.
“She told me she was seven-years-old,” says Allen, noting her concern given that Horizon’s age limit is 13. After a few minutes of chatting, they were approached by a group of men. “They surrounded us and started making jokes about how they could gang rape us,” she recalls. After Allen informed the men that there was a child present (all avatars look like adults), they insisted they were “just messing about”.
