Metaverse "Sexual Assault": How to Protect Human Dignity in the Virtual World
■ Observer
How to deal with the challenge of "sexual assault" in the virtual world has become very serious.
Recently, a woman was "sexually assaulted" by a stranger in the Metaverse.
This caused widespread concern.
As a virtual space where users interact with avatars, the Metaverse has recently been hyped.
However, with the increase of attention and the successive development and listing of related products, related problems have gradually emerged.
It is understood that the victim is a 21-year-old woman who created a female avatar in Meta's recently released Horizon World game.
But he was "sexually assaulted" by a male avatar, and there were bystanders booing next to him.
It's nasty nature is outrageous.
In fact, there have been similar incidents before, when some scholars believed that the untouched body can also be judged as sexual harassment, because the impact of virtual behavior on personality and dignity is usually undoubted.
However, there are opinions in this incident that it is difficult to define "virtual rape" as real "rape" at present.
Technical details aside, there are three main reasons for this uproar.
First, "sexual assault" takes place in the virtual world.
The Metaverse is different from the general cyberspace. It combines virtual reality technology, relies on blockchain, and is supported by cryptocurrency. It aims to create a full-fledged metaspace, thereby "catch all" the content of daily life.
Such technology ceases to be a specific function, but becomes a place where functions and meanings take place, starting a game outside the physical world.
So this "virtual sexual assault" is unprecedented.
Second, the "sexual assault" occurred between two virtual characters, not two real people.
In what sense can sexual activity between two virtual characters be considered "sexual assault"?
Physical contact between two characters in a game is hardly considered real sexual activity.
But the avatars of the metaverse are not ordinary avatars, their images and actions are selected by people and generated in real time.
Finally, the Metaverse aims to replicate or even transcend physical perception, using a range of technologies to achieve realism.
This makes "virtual sexual assault" very "real".
People don't operate their own avatars through a handle, but completely become their own avatars.
Human perception is perfectly simulated.
For a period of time in the future, with the continuous development of the metaverse, physical reality and virtual reality will inevitably be deeply integrated, and the switching between online and offline will become so smooth that it is often unnoticed by people.
The whole meaning of people's daily activities is completed in such a highly integrated advanced reality. At this time, the challenge of "sexual assault" in the virtual world may become very serious.
It is understood that considering the risk of "sexual assault", Meta recently added a feature to combat harassment in virtual reality.
The feature, called Personal Boundaries, creates an invisible virtual barrier around the VR "avatar", preventing others from getting too close.
This can be seen as the normative origin of the metaverse.
However, judging from the current reports, this is still not mandatory, and it is difficult to achieve the desired effect. Therefore, how to prevent human dignity from being violated in the virtual world is still a long way to go.
□Wang Xiaowei (School of Philosophy, Renmin University of China)