A woman in the UK has admitted to being sexually harassed while at Horizon Venues, a virtual world created by Facebook or now known as Meta.
The woman named Nina Jane Patel wrote about her experience in a blog on Medium. He admitted the abuse occurred immediately within seconds of entering the world of the metaverse.
"Within 60 seconds of joining -- I was verbally and sexually harassed -- 3-4 male avatars, with male voices, basically, but they virtually raped me and took photos," Patel wrote on his blog, as quoted from Vice, Wednesday (2/2/2022).
"It was very surreal. It was a nightmare," he continued.
Patel added that when he tried to run away, the avatars shouted at him. He also didn't have time to report and block the avatars because it happened so fast.
After sharing his experience, Patel even received malicious comments, such as telling him not to use female avatars and some saying Patel was just looking for attention.
Ironically, Patel is Co-founder and Vice President of Metaverse Research for Kabuni Ventures, a company that works to provide child-safe metaverses. Patel is currently investigating the psychological and physiological impact of extended reality (XR).
Horizon Venues is a metaverse world designed as a virtual gathering place. In this world, visitors appear as avatars and can do many things that are usually done in the real world, such as hanging out with friends, watching concerts, and shopping.
But since it was launched to the public in December 2021, this service has been widely discussed because of the problem of virtual sexual harassment. Like a female beta tester who claims to have her avatar groped by a stranger.
Meta spokesman Joe Osborne said they were aware of the issue and would continue to bring improvements to Horizon Venues to make users feel more secure.
"We're sorry to hear that this has happened. We want everyone at Horizon Venues to have a positive experience, easily find security features that can help in a situation like this -- and help us investigate and take action," Meta said in a statement.
"Horizon Venues need to be secure, and we're committed to building it that way. We'll continue to make improvements as we learn about how people interact in these spaces, especially in helping people report things easily and reliably."
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