With the growth of social VR and virtual reality in general, will we reach a point where virtual rape is criminalized? More importantly, are we over criminalizing the web and Internet in general?
Virtual Rape, what?
The concept of virtual rape has some problems at least under certain circumstances. If we take Facebook social VR for example where all the users are verified for age, gender, etc, then something is known about the person on the other side in some legally verifiable way. On the Internet prior to Facebook there was no easy way to verify the identity of anyone behind an avatar on any website. The participants in a virtual world would not know who is male or who is female, would not be able to distinguish between male or female players, would not know the age of the other players, in fact nothing can be known about personal identity in that environment unless the participant shares it.
In the verified spaces on the other hand where participants are linked to a real world identity, where reputation is tracked to real world identity, then this opens up different possibilities. The question as to what is virtual rape is relevant in the context where social VR takes off and I predict at some point someone will claim they were virtually raped. The question then is whether it is even possible to virtually rape someone who can simply shut off their machine, or remove their VR headset+suit?
Striding through the snow-covered fortress, shooting zombies with her bow and arrow, Jordan Belamire felt like a god – right up until the moment someone named BigBro442 decided to “virtually rub [her] chest” and make her feel like just another “powerless woman”.
“Even when I turned away from him, he chased me around, making grabbing and pinching motions near my chest,” she wrote in a Medium post of her experience playing QuiVR, a virtual reality game. “Emboldened, he even shoved his hand toward my virtual crotch and began rubbing.”
Sexual harassment has been a feature of online and gaming communities from the earliest days of the internet. Until now, the abuse has been largely limited to verbal and visual messages, but as virtual reality technology becomes more immersive, the line between our real bodies and our digital bodies begins to blur.
My question after interpreting these quotes is why on earth do we even need to think about "gender" in virtual environments which don't need to be restricted to these rules? A player in a VR environment would have no clue what gender another player is and just because their avatar is female doesn't mean they are female in the real world. So for this reason I would say this particular kind of argument would only apply to social VR which links gender identity to the virtual identity, which in my opinion isn't necessary and actually takes away from some of the freedom VR has to offer.
“If you highly identify with your avatar and are portraying yourself in an authentic manner, you’re going to feel violated,” said Jesse Fox, an Ohio State University professor who researches the social implications of virtual worlds. “It wouldn’t be different if someone sent you a harassing email to your work email or harassed you in a chat room.”
And what should be the consequences for people who violate in virtual space? Also how can any participant know whether or not you identify with your avatar and are portraying yourself in an authentic manner? This isn't in my opinion the same as email necessarily because an email account is expected socially to be used in real world serious communication while VR is associated with gaming. Gaming typically has players who enjoy the freedom and fantasy without the responsibilities of the real world. It is true that people can have their feelings hurt in virtual environments and it does stimulate the senses, so there can be a lot more intensity to it. At the same time I don't think it compares to real life because in real life you can't unplug, you can't disconnect or block a player you don't want to play with, at least not without a restraining order which may not even work.
When the developers of QuiVR, Aaron Stanton and Jonathan Schenker, learned about Belamire’s experience of harassment, they updated the game’s code to include an expanded “personal bubble” that they believe will prevent future gropings.
And this in my opinion is crucial. Not every problem requires creating a new law, with harsh criminal sentences. In a way the United States has a fetish for over criminalization. The United States has a lot of non-violent prisoners and criminals because it's so easy to do something wrong and be punished. In the context of VR the solutions can also be in VR and I think that is the resolution to virtual rape. The concept of a virtual shield in my opinion is a way to allow participants to protect themselves within the rules of the virtual world, which encourages self regulation.
Thats the one thing missing from GTA 5! :P
as long as you have control of whether you are online or not.
MOST ESPECIALLY if you can conceal your meat-world identity.
then the concept of virtual rape is meaningless.
change the 'channel' or use the ON/OFF switch.
it's that simple.
I believe this is true to some extent, however there’s not really any place on the internet that can guarantee these conditions today. As long as you CAN identify yourself and that’s not illegal there has to be laws protecting you when you have already given out who you are right?
Also the "as long as you have control" implies that only adults being able to consent are able to enter this VR. Even so I expect there will always be something of value in any VR to threaten with as opposed to keeping someone online by force. This of course being more important in the future when the experiences are more realistic.
nope...identified or not.
hang up.
end of problem.
when I was bit a wee lad...I reached for the hot skillet on the stove.
My momma done told me..."don't touch that...it's HOT!"
I touched it anyway...OUCH! "momma it hurt!
"Done told ya" she said to me...
So what do you call people who intentionally place themselves in harms way then complain because they get hurt?
Sorry, if you just avoid any situation of possible threat, where does it end? Next time people say "then do not go jogging alone in the park if you don´t want to get raped" or "do not go to a disco if you don´t want to get knockout drops in your drink". Right does not have to give ground to wrong (in german "Recht muss Unrecht nicht weichen", not sure if translated 100%). Just since it is easy to hang up in VR, doesn´t make the concept of pure avoidance better.
God made man.
Samuel Colt made man equal.
Don't leave home without an equalizer.
If someone has your identity they can threaten you. If that is the case, then it’s not end of problem. Where do you draw your line? If someone uses a gun to threaten you but you can physically move away? Or if someone just uses words that proves they can and probably will harm you if you don’t comply?
AND...you change the parameters.
Threats are something else.
a credible threat is an assault.
an assault, other than being illegal, justifies retaliation with proportional force.
Fair enough and good to hear that we agree on threats! My pointjust being that in a hyphotetical VR that could interact with your physical senses, threats like these can lead to rape. right?
I might be a dreamer but I don't think we're too far away from making VR close enough to reality for this to become a problem. But while we still can't 'touch' in most VRs today I think you're right that's not a problem now. If you we're only commenting on right now and no plans for the future I think we agree. And of course this is my very personal beliefs on us making faster technological advances than social and that VR could at some point become even completely indistinguishable from reality.
Hope you don't feel like I just changed the parameters again I'm just trying to take the discussion further because I felt that's what the original story was about, predicting the future a bit. Thank you for answering!
You draw the line between reality and non reality - It very very simple.
concepts, and dealing in reality are completely different things.
I can stab you a million times in a game - you don't die.
In the real world, these actions have very different results.
The sooner we stop trying to bring virtual anything, into real life, - skin and bones - the sooner we back out this madness.
Another aspect of the insanity, made sane by the cultural marxist push of the last 40 years.
non reality is reality???
What next?- there are 90 genders......oops, been done...
I see your point and admit to being a bit of a dreamer. My beliefs are actually that it wouldn't be impossible in the future to create a 'non reality' that's just like reality.(In fact, I think it sounds reasonable to believe we're actually part of a really advanced kind of VR already.. which I understand might sound crazy but maybe you'll stumble over that theory again some day.)
However I don't really see the need for making death in VR lead to physical death outside, like in The Matrix, so hopefully murder wouldn't be possible. Everything ells that we would probably want to have we would have. Maybe we would want to be able to choose what we want to do and feel and how much of that to show others? Maybe even be able to choose to die? In that case you can always threaten someone for these things.
But this is just my predictions. Not any political stance, in fact I kind of agree we have to back out of this madness. Atleast move on with way more caution because virtual everything will become a lot more real anyways even if my 'crazy' scenarios won't come true, unless we really try to prevent it. Maybe we should, but i suspect that's going to be hard. Hope you don't mind my essay.. I just find the topic interesting.
It's true - the confusion in delineation between what is real, and accepting non real -as real, is a form of insanity .
The Utopian idea that we can or even should create 100% sterilized safe environments online by punishing perpetrators with our legal system is not only close to impossible but also comes at the high cost of our freedoms.
On the other hand as a society we want to try to protect as much as we can the vulnerable ones among us, which in my book are the younger minds wondering off to find experiences without risking their psychological health.
The balanced option for me would be for video games or any other environment of social interaction should self police. If they have a clear target demographic they should attempt to cater to it to stimulate its growth and success...
Exactly, WHAT? lol
Certainly there are no lack of people who want to criminalize speech and abolish the 1st amendment. Indeed, they are even getting their editorials published in the New York Times. Their proposed criminalization of speech extends to anything you might say online. This means that not only would "virtual rape" become illegal, but suggesting, encouraging, or even talking about "virtual rape" could in itself become a crime.
What makes all of this push for the criminalization of frowned upon speech and thoughts even worse are the (almost universally ignored) inevitable repercussions. How would these laws be enforced? Would we have divisions of thought police that monitored all of our conversation? Would laws be passed mandating us to record all of our thought, speech, and activities in case of potential "speech audits", to ensure that no laws were being violated (much like we are forced to do to comply with tax laws)?
At the end of the day, you either support free speech, free thought, and free expression, along with all of its dangers and shortfalls, or you don't.
A lot of virtual crimes are still not getting recognition and there are a lot that need to be done about it. But I guess it will take time
Perhaps virtual crimes only warrant virtual punishment, i.e. banning, which is already being done.
That would be a good start of it. :D
If that's only the start, then where is the end? I think it should be the start and the end.
Thanks for sharing!
W A T
Long story but I found it interesting! So you don’t advocate for stricter laws on the internet? In your first quotation the woman reportedly experienced both sexual harassment and sexism. For only one of which you are required to know the persons gender. And for the other one, harassment, it becomes increasingly worse the more personal this virtual reality becomes.
As for physical rape, the virtual reality would have to engage with our physical senses and at that point I think it definitely has to be treated as such. And before that I would argue it’s important to recognize that you can harass or threaten someone the same with words, over the phone, on Facebook or in the virtual realities of games. Doesn't it really just comes down to how real the treats could be and how personal the attacks were?
You answered it. I don't advocate the personalization of every online interaction. I also don't assume the locus of control is somehow missing. A participant should be able to control their experience within the rules of the virtual world as easy as it is to change the channel on TV if an annoying commercial, or change the radio station if an annoying song.
Ok thank you for answering aswell then. I like your idea. As long as you’re not identifiable and the avatars used doesn’t have any value or reputation to threaten for.
But not much of an VR, more like anonymous chatting. And even then again, if it is social at all it’s going to be hard to make it impossible to identify yourself via it. You can of coarse encourage people to keep safe, but if they don’t anyway, I don’t think we should be victim blaming online either.
it is simply gross to do such a thing. Probably the game should allow flagging the culprit. If the game allows damage to other players, that means the culprit may be terminated 😅 (could imagine another problem arise, virtual violence)
Virtual self defense with guns or tag a person so that he cannot get closer than 20 meters and afer the third time he explodes :D
lol.. that's cruel. how to judge 20m? There's a lot of grey area in the virtual world which we had yet to have any solution.
20 meter is like when I throw a ball as powerful as possible ;D
I never wore a VR, is it already uncool and if not how many months until it is?
I was thinking of unplugging myself out of the VR if it's over disturbing. The physical world still matter more than virtual (may not be in future like The Matrix).
Nice post friends good luck
Great Post.
Interesting.
You never know what may happen down the road, especially with cyberbullying and criminalization of stealing of virtual items.
And let's not forget... Otakus out there marrying their virtual partners.
I guess we will only know when a game's virtual reality has direct consequences in our reality.
A very interesting concept not one that I had considered. As you point-out though some people do really connect a bit too much (in my view) with their avatar and I can see the feeling violated if anything were to happen. Likewise some wanting to do that sort of thing might try in in VR first. VR is a minefield waiting to be walked across it implication will change humanity for sure, as to how it can’t be said at the moment :)
No, but raping a sexbot could be !