Police are investigating after a child's video game character was gang raped in virtual reality.
This appears to be the first time that a sex crime has actually been investigated by the police.
The girl, who is under the age of 16, is said to have been distraught after her online character was attacked by others.
Although there was no physical attack, police said the girl suffered psychological and emotional trauma.
The attack took place in the Metaverse, a virtual reality world created by Meta and Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg.
This is considered the next big evolution of the Internet.
Users wear virtual reality headsets and interact with other users through playable avatars.
The victim was in an online “room” with a large number of users when she was “raped.”
A senior police officer working on the case said: “This child has experienced psychological trauma similar to that of someone who has been physically raped.
“There are longer-lasting emotional and psychological effects on victims than any physical injury.
“It creates a lot of challenges for law enforcement given the current laws are not set up for this.”
This is not the first time an online avatar has been sexually assaulted.
Multiple players of Horizon Worlds, a free VR online game run by Meta, have reported being attacked by other players.
“Behavior like the one described will not be tolerated on our platform, which is why we have an automatic protection feature for all of our users called Personal Boundaries that keeps strangers a few feet away from you,” Mehta said. ” he said.