This is offensive, deeply troubling, and, sadly, totally predictable. Julian Dibbell documented similar behavior 30 years ago in his article about sexual assault in the text-only virtual world LambaMOO. (Content warning… sexual assault in a multi-user virtual environment.)

A woman has revealed she was ‘virtually gang raped’  by four male avatars in Meta‘s Horizon Worlds – and she said the trauma is similar to a real-world assault.

Speaking to DailyMail.com, psychotherapist and start-up co-founder Nina Patel said that her attackers may have felt ‘disinhibited’ due to being in a virtual world.

While she does not know the attacker’s true identities, all four had male voices – and one even said to her, ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t love it’ after the attack.

Patel told DailyMail.com that the ‘distressing experience’ happened just 60 seconds after joining the Meta-owned virtual world – a shared 3D space where avatars often meet random people. — Daily Mail