The incident in a virtual world reportedly left the under-16-year-old traumatised.

Police are investigating a virtual sexual assault of a girl’s avatar, the chair of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners has said.

Donna Jones said she had learned that a complaint was made in 2023, triggering a police inquiry.

The virtual incident did not result in physical harm but caused “psychological trauma”, the Daily Mail has reported a source as saying. Police chiefs have called on platforms to do more to protect their users.

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The impact of the attack on the girl’s avatar was said to be heightened because of the immersive nature of the VR experience.

  • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
    42·
    11 months ago

    [the victim] suffered psychological trauma “similar to that of someone who has been physically raped”.

    No she didn’t. I’m sure it wasn’t a pleasant experience, but let’s not over exaggerate the situation.

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
      7·
      11 months ago

      Yeah but wild we don’t over exaggerate the situation, how will I get all the attention?

    • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
      7·
      11 months ago

      If it had been my avatar, I wonder if they’d be making that claim. As in, if it was literally the same avatar but I’d been wearing the headset.

    • deaf_fish@lemm.ee
      2·
      11 months ago

      I’m not so sure I agree with you. If I had a choice between getting raped IRL or Virtually, I would choose Virtually any day.

      But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t get PTSD or some other trauma from being virtually assaulted. As far as I know, the brain sees all trauma equality because brains are dumb like that. So I think it is possible the victim is experiencing similar trauma to being raped IRL.