From "Attacks in the metaverse are booming. Police are starting to pay attention. A growing cohort of activists are urging police forces to grapple with sexual attacks in virtual reality, but prosecuting digital abuse could be tricky" (WaPo).
“People kill each other all the time in video games but we don’t call them murderers,” said Aya Gruber, a law professor at the University of Southern California who has studied rape laws and called jail a “blunt tool” for addressing online behavior....
Many of the earliest adopters of virtual reality came from the video game industry — a sector that has struggled with racism, sexism and harassment. These issues exploded into the public in the 2014 phenomenon known as “gamergate,” when internet trolls organized to harass women in gaming circles....
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67 comments:
Her avatar needs to toughen up.
Maybe Meta should to kick the offenders off their VR system, but the notion of jailing a real person because their cartoon character fondled some other cartoon character is insane. Kafkaesque.
WaPo is not credible: "Police are STARTING to take notice"?????????
Where has this 'reporter' been? Are they 18 years old? Have they worked with technology before? This is old news. Very old news. Virtual 'attacks' date back decades are are largely not actionable because there's no crime when everyone might be consciously roleplaying and when anyone can leave in an instant. Gamergate was a proto-"Me Too" event. I wonder how Anthony Bourdain's spirit feels about the zealots of the Me Too movement.
Please don't give any attention to the useless and money-losing WaPo.
Honestly, this sounds like high-school stuff. If, in 1988-1989, I was afforded this sort of technology, I am CERTAIN that I (and/or my friends) would have done something like this in a virtual space and laughed our asses off.
I liked the reference to killing people online; perfect comparison.
Pro Tip. Found a way to avoid getting mugged coming out of a bar. I avoid going into bars.
All mainstream media describes Gamergate exactly backwards from what it was. I have 0 faith in any institution now to tell the truth about anything
Can't you just set it to Don't Touch Me?
I have little sympathy for people chasing the latest digital buzz, but this seems to be an easy solution.
So it’s NOT reality, it’s so-called VIRTUAL reality. In other words “fantasy”.
Really wonder if “she wanted it” is a legit defense here. How was her avatar dressed? Was she asking for it?
Sounds like a late night movie where a gal says to a guy that she wants to act out a rape fantasy, and he goes along only to later be charged with actual rape by local authorities when she feels guilt.
This is emblematic of social media in general. People say and do things online that they won’t say or do in real life. But you don’t have to be “plugged in”. You can tune out and turn it off.
Here’s an idea, go outside, meet a REAL friend. Have a REAL life…
You can make almost anything illegal, I would like congress to establish a federal court district for the virtual world, that would be the best jurisdiction to preside in.
Digital armor. Perhaps digital rubber... you're digital glue. #Googol+1
“I had no intentions of being the woman who was sexually assaulted in the metaverse,” Patel said.
NINA JANE PATEL
Sure, Sweetie.
"male figures" Is WaPo transphobic?
When it comes to computer games, your avatar is not you. It's a character that you create, the same way that someone might create any other content on the internet.
This would be like writing a blog post and then being deluged with pornographic comments and messages. It's not rape, but is is unwanted sexual advances and harassment.
Perhaps the game designers should put a sexual assault reporting button in the game where someone can instantly report a virtual sexual assault. The game would pause and a real human could examine the recent actions of the participants and then ban anyone determined to have acted inappropriately.
I suspect that virtual crime deserves virtual punishment.
Next thing you know they will be performing digital abortions... to relieve perceived "burdens". Wicked.
Ted Kennedy and Christopher Dodd cosplayers?
Let's talk about her avatar. What was it wearing? Was the avatar 'asking for it'?
The incremental step toward 'thought crime'
Ted Kennedy and Christopher Dodd cosplayers?
Maybe Ms Patel could convince Jack Smith or Fani Ellis to prosecute her imaginary attackers. All she needs to do is work Trump into the complaint. Maybe she could claim her avatar was attacked by Trump's avatar in a store dressing cubicle 30 years ago. That approach might sound idiotic, but it works every time in NYC.
Easy solution: mandate that consent be obtained from all participants before sex in virtual reality occur. Set it up so consent to approach is required when one participant gets close enough to touch another. Disable the functioning of the virtual penis if consent is NOT obtained. Second offense, it falls off, and that virtual function never returns.
The old AI - artificial interaction.
"2014 phenomenon known as “gamergate,” when internet trolls organized to harass women in gaming circles...."
Always a laugh-riot. Always. They will never admit it was a shitty-coding hooker with a cashapp that was actually "harassing men in gaming circles".
The truth is but a lie undiscovered to these people. Even when they're literally caught red-handed, they will double down. They will lie when they're on the scaffold. Unreal.
Bots? Relays? Illusions? How do they know the quantity, sex, and gender of the avatars?
If you're virtually raped by another virtual player, is it possible to get a virtual STD? Or, can you get virtually pregnant? And then what? Do you visit a virtual Planned Parenthood where they tell you to "Vote Blue, and now...spread your legs- virtually, of course,"? Do you then virtually go out on the town or virtually go home to virtually, recoup and virtually reflect?
I'm not sure what to make of any of this and frankly, wondering how and why game behavior is a newsworthy item? Particularly in the virtual world where....let's remind each other- NOTHING IS REAL.
"tim maguire said...
Her avatar needs to toughen up. "
tim wins the thread by coining the official Catch phrase for the early / mid 21c
"These issues exploded into the public in the 2014 phenomenon known as “gamergate,” when internet trolls organized to harass women in gaming circles...."
This is a complete lie. It was in fact a reaction to widespread corruption in gaming journalism, and the cozy sex-for-good reviews/industry wins exchange in which female game developers and others were engaging. They got called out by real gamers and then they cried all over Twitter pulling the “poor pitiful me” act, with accusations of misogyny.
An avatar is not your real self. Players are going to take liberties in VR world knowing full well that it isn’t reality. Are there going to be VR cops tracking down players and slapping the cuffs on them for assault? How would that even work?
These issues exploded into the public in the 2014 phenomenon known as “gamergate,” when internet trolls organized to harass women in gaming circles....
LOL, not at all what gamergate was about, but WAPO gonna WAPO.
Diversity (i.e. color judgments, class bigotry) is a clear and progressive condition in the analog world, too. #HateLovesAbortion
Breast Lives Matter (BLM)
Those aren't breasts. They are carbon deposits evolved as vestigial fetal tissue with oblong shapes... and [milky] white secretions.
A teachable moment in anti-racism?
Tit huggers? Is so 70s.
It's actually pretty funny. This is what women ALWAYS do. First, they say
"I can play this game just as well as a man can. It's not fair to exclude me".
Then they say,
"You play too rough! We need to change the rules!".
It's actually the flip-side of what the trans assholes do, invading a game specifically developed to be gentle enough for women and using their greatly superior strength to hurt people.
You do have to wonder. It would certainly be possible to design a game so that nothing remotely like this could possibly occur. But that would be a different game. She doesn't want to play a game she likes, she wants to break this game.
"An avatar is not your real self. Players are going to take liberties in VR world knowing full well that it isn’t reality. Are there going to be VR cops tracking down players and slapping the cuffs on them for assault? How would that even work?"
I can see how that might actually be kind of popular. Cops and Robbers online. Bank heists, smuggling, stake-outs, car chases and shoot-outs. What's not to like? Of course, the chicks would fuck it up in no time.
I am surprised that the woman they group groped was, in fact, a woman.
Breast Lives Matter (BLM)
Those aren't breasts. They are carbon deposits evolved as vestigial fetal tissue with oblong shapes... and [milky] white secretions.
Well, here they are actually electrons moving through circuitry so as to portray carbon deposits evolved as vestigal fetal tissue with oblong shapes, etc.
Avatar entanglement is a little known phenomenon of quantum mechanics observed in electronic systems with social environments.
I think the parents of the guys who programmed the games need to be charged with rape. The parents of the gals playing the games should be charged with reckless endangerment for allowing their daughters to play the game. So what if it was a 45 year old woman. Examples need to be made.
This story has never made sense. Why wouldn't the person being harassed just take off the googles or log out or hit the power button? Instant escape.
At least as I understand what is being claimed, there wasn't even the lame excuse that "I would have lost the loot from the raid if I'd logged out," so why didn't the supposed "victim" just say "F-you" and disgust-quit?
I would be happy to be shown to be wrong, but this seems like attention seeking all around: victim gets sympathy and publicity, and Meta/Facebook attracts a whole raft of creepy weirdos who will pay top dollar to virtually assault people on line. Then Meta/Facebook announces that they're cracking down on the behavior that they've enabled and thus gets favorable press...
...even though they never had to enable such behavior in the first place. It would not be impossible to build into the system at a low level a set of contingencies so that if a virtual hand touched virtual breasts or virtual genitals, the offending appendage would freeze, fall off, grow tentacles, become covered with hair, shrink to minute size, rot, explode, etc., or the whole avatar could just be booted back to a respawn location. That something like this wasn't built into the system at a low level tells me Zuckerberg WANTS there to be sexual touching in the "Metaverse"--that's probably one of the under-the-radar (for now) functions that will attract certain people and will eventually spawn all manner of "services" .
"when internet trolls organized to harass women in gaming circles...."
Yeah, that's how we are supposed to see what happened, not that feminist "game critics" with no connection to the community were parachuted in to the top of gaming journals to pursue agendas other than making good games.
Let's take an analogous area of human experience, the writing of novels rather than video games. Would these same people stand up for the censorship of novels like "Death In Venice" because it's about a pederast aching obsession with a boy? Would the people standing up against organized efforts to control the content of novels be described as "trolls"? What about if some group insisted on controlling the content of movies, blacklisting people who wouldn't go along, would people standing up to them be described as "trolls"?
This whole incident sounds so contrived to me. Is she physically connected to her avatar, like in The Matrix, where she has to find a payphone somewhere in the virtual world so that she can get out of there via dialup, with a risk to her personal safety?
Their description of "gamergate" is so incorrect that it immediately derails the entire article.
It's a hate crime in progress. Call 911 to report the avatars.
"gamergate" -- DRINK!
I'm okay with avatar police investigating avatar crimes and executing avatar arrest warrants for avatar courts to avatar prosecute...otherwise you can avatar fuck off.
"the video game industry — a sector that has struggled with racism, sexism and harassment."
What does that even mean?
When you are surrounded by dragons, invoke the power of thirst to quench their fire. Witches can be banished in lakes, warlocks on burning crosses, "burdens" in clinics, antelope in pride parades, tree huggers in Green fields, etc.
I've said before that I play an MMORPG. That exact scenario has happened to characters of mine. I simply 'popped' to my home base. Worst case is /exit. Why the hell stand there while mental eight year olds harass you?
'My physical body was responding,' ... I have a hard time believing that.
Many of the earliest adopters of virtual reality came from the video game industry — a sector that has struggled with accusations of racism, sexism and harassment.
Fixed.
We've seen videos of the Meta being recorded. Was there video proof? Recording is typically a one key invocation. If not, I'm more inclined towards disbelief. Vid would provide both proof it happened and (importantly) the identities of those culpable.
Don't forget, Anita Sarkeesian lied her ass off about many things concerning gamergate.
In my game there's two modes of play, PVP and PVE. That's player vs player and p vs environment. In it you can suppress the PVP mode and others can't attack you. If Meta doesn't have this...
Can Meta be sued like the kid's parents for not preventing it?
Turnabout.
"Help! I'm being raped!"
"Take your goggles off."
"Oh, that's better."
CJinPA said...
“Can't you just set it to Don't Touch Me?”
Yes.
Or virtual mace. Or virtual concealed carry. Or virtual self-defense moves. Or the booby-trap from ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’
Didn’t we deal with this in the 1980s with A-Ha?
Take on me
(Take on me)
Take me on
(Take on me)
I'll be gone
In a day or two
Won’t someone rid us of these screwballs?
By the time there is an actual Metaverse, men will be able to teabag as a finishing move.
Maybe it's caused by their high testosterone due to their devotion to a nofap bro science anti-establishment lifestyle.
Oh, please! Now augmented imaginations need to be policed?
I've got it. Dress codes for avatars.
Conflation of logical domains... syndrome.
I am reminded of graffiti in the bathroom of the old Half Price Books on Lavaca St in Austin. Someone had written "there are only 176 real people in the world, the rest are done with mirrors." Underneath that, some wag had written "mirror pussy is great". If young women can no longer distinguish between their virtual and corporeal selves, it's game over, man.
These issues exploded into the public in the 2014 phenomenon known as “gamergate,” when internet trolls organized to harass women in gaming circles
The bullshit never ends, so neither will the calling out of the bullshit.
Gamergate started when gamers found out that some female "game journalists" were in sexual relationships with guys whose games they were reviewing, and the gamers pointed out this was completely unethical.
As it was completely unethical, and everyone involved knew it, so they responded by attacking the gamers and calling them "sexists".
Then they discovered that trying to engage in an online flame war with gamers was a really bad idea. :-)
It's on a par with using bad language. Women may be offended or want to pretend to be.
That's why it says NO GIRLZ on the clubhouse in whatever comic strip that was.
"Three male figures surrounded her avatar in... a virtual live events program created by Meta. They touched her avatar’s breasts and pressed their torsos rhythmically against her, telling her that she wanted it."
No, they did NOT "touch her avatar's breasts". That would require her "avatar" to have a physical reality that it doesn't have.
Nothing touched her. Nothing constrained her movements. If she in reality walked away, moved her arms to hit them, whatever, nothing would have blocked or prevented her body movements.
For that matter, I'm pretty sure nothing operated to stop her from simply turning off, going someplace else, then turning back on.
In short, everything teh WaPo produced there is bullshit
Kind of amazing that prosecution of actual, real-world crime is so out of fashion, yet these hipsters are urging prosecution of make-believe crime. What'll they think of next?
Next up: Pre-crime.
PS - What sort of genius concluded that what this world needs is MORE screens?
Next up: Pre-crime
Minority report.
Corruption of blood.
Color privilege.
Toxic genderism.
A plausible "burden", probable profit, and first-order forcing of climate change.
That we are discussing making this a crime is just another signpost on our way to Idiocracy. Our elites are fucking morons.
This is ridiculous. Gamers in FPS games have been teabagging each other in game since the games were first invented back in the 80's/90's.
Ms Patel seems to be involved in that Trump University sequel "Master Class". I see the ads all the time. Paul Krugman offering to teach me about economics, someone else offering to teach me all about theology, someone else wants to teach me guitar. I've not seen an ad with Ms Patel yet but she does mention them on her website that someone mentioned.
Masterclass
Do you want to feel empowered to understand the next evolution of technology. Ask about the masterclass.
John Henry
Interpol Metaverse Expert????
This is a job that pays money? WTF!
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