Our virtual worlds are steadily becoming as tactile as our physical ones– as demonstrated by a case in the UK, the first instance of a rape investigation in the metaverse. A girl says her avatar in a virtual-reality game, owned by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, was raped. This is not an over-the-top sensationalism. Her charges force us to confront the prevalence of ‘rape culture’ and also of the new kinds of threats emerging in our multiverse.
Just because it’s virtual, doesn’t mean it’s less invasive. Often, online abuse transcends the “safety valve”—its virtual-ness—and the threats become physical.
If online abuse and trolling can be tried as a hate crime, then this case also calls for serious focus.
It’s also time to reckon that sexual violence isn’t just about penetration. It is more complicated. It’s a form of domination and subjugation, and as the digital universe imitates the real world, it also accommodates its ugliest, basest instincts. It isn’t all that surprising that a woman was raped in the metaverse.
We live in a culture of rape. The term ‘rape culture’ gained credence some years ago in India, following the 2012 Delhi bus gang rape and murder. It’s defined by Roxane Gay, the author of Bad Feminist, “as a culture where it often seems like it is a question of when, not if, a woman will encounter sexual violence.” This consists of sexual harassment, stalking, the impunity men enjoy and the trolling women are subjected to on social media — which often has sexual overtones. There’s a clear-cut difference between how men and women are treated on the internet. While men are also victims of social media drivel which extends into abuse, they are exempt from a certain category of hate which forms the crux of women’s lives on the internet.
“The attacks and the lies and the smear campaigns still have very real consequences; the physical reality of the threats and stalking is not something I’m able to ignore,” writes American journalist Taylor Lorenz, in an essay about her decision to not share her personal life online.
Also Read: ‘Nudes in DMs, rape threats from 14-yr-olds’: Women gamers say KYCs a start but govt must do more
Real-world consequence
The virtual world has real-world consequences and shapes some of our most pivotal real-world events. A lot has been written about platforms like Meta and X bending to accommodate the Modi government, as well as their role as disseminators (and possibly manipulators) in the upcoming general elections.
Given the massive influence these platforms wield and the fact that they’re literally governing universes in and of itself — you’d think there would be more regulatory frameworks. But it appears as if platforms, and consequently their millions of users, are beholden to the whims of their, to put it mildly, eccentric owners and CEOs. When Twitter became X under Elon Musk, it underwent an avalanche of changes — which again, had real-world implications, including nearly half the workforce losing their jobs. There were limits on how many tweets could be viewed per day, a previously unthought-of phenomenon, given how many industries (such as the news) rely heavily on the platform.
The platform’s eulogy is being written and rewritten. 2023 has been called the year Twitter died.
Musk’s mercurial personality and a woman being raped in the metaverse may seem disparate. But they point to a disturbing truism—the platforms that govern and dictate our lives don’t have the interest of their users at heart.
“I believe that the metaverse is the next chapter of the internet. Just like we had the mobile internet, I think this is going to be the successor to that,” Mark Zuckerberg said last year. He’s coolly aware that once again, he’s changing the world. Tech founders are known for inflated egos and a swollen sense of self-worth, but for some of them, the grandstanding is valid. They’re responsible for changing the way we live and are helming some seriously precipitous developments.
That’s why it’s alarming to think that guidelines for user safety and overall mechanisms for standardisation are afterthoughts: minuscule bugs that can be fixed, but even if they’re not — it’s business as usual.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)