UncategorizedSEXUAL HARASSMENT IN THE METAVERSE

What is Metaverse? Metaverse is a virtual environment built by Facebook, now rebranded as ‘Meta’ (“Meta”), where users are represented by avatars to navigate a virtual world. It allows users to interact with 3D virtual worlds using their avatar where they can work, study or have fun in the virtual universe.

Metaverse was initially perceived as a source of leisure for users of the platform and paved the way for the 3D online games like PubG and Fortnite to name a few. In view of the exponential growth prospects that Metaverse inhabits, the following elements are effectively offered such as Digital currency, Online shopping, Workplace automation, Social media, Digital Humans, Online gaming etc. Thus, Metaverse with its digital avatars has been very successful in creating an alternative workplace for employers and employees together. A place where everything is clinically precise and structured with a clean aesthetic.

Metaverse enables people to engage, experiment and meet people online in the virtual world. There is high tendency of people engaging in manipulative, deceitful behaviour which constitutes harassment to behave in that manner in a virtual world due since anonymity offers them protection and because they would not necessarily be comfortable with their behaviour in the physical, real world. The platform in fact, provides the perpetrators with the best place to hide and continue with such behaviour without facing the consequences of the real world. It is already a challenge for authorities to deal with fake identities in the existing forms of social media.

All of this is possible because of the virtual technologies that exist today such as, Virtual Reality (“VR”), Augmented Reality (AR), Mixed Reality (MR) and Extended Reality (XR) that enables users to enjoy immersive virtual experience which is enriched with realistic feedback sensors.

The existing threats to the citizens’ data collection and sale of the same to third party aggregators, harassment with targeted marketing campaigns, weak security procedures, cyber-attacks, and identity theft can lead Metaverse to become a safe haven for harassers, criminals and fringe groups.

Even though an act of sexual harassment in the Metaverse, does not involve any physical touch, it can still be as traumatic as it would have been in the physical world since the avatar (Representation of self in the form of in built characters in the Metaverse) is practically and technically the user in the physical world. Thereby, it creates the same mental trauma and impact on the victim on whom such act of sexual harassment is performed making it even more difficult to ascertain and understand the sequence due to no redressal mechanism applicable to a virtual act in either in the physical world or in the virtual world.

Imagine it is a pay day and you enter your bank, virtually, to withdraw your real money and another customer flashes a pornographic image at you. That image will make a permanent imprint in your brain, even though it was shown virtually. A cruel and embarrassing experience in the virtual space like this, is likely to leave a permanent impact on the victim who might not even know how to deal with the same in real world.

As per an article dated April 23, 2023 of Washington Post, ChatGPT (AI Chatbot) generated a complete list of “legal scholars who had sexually harassed someone” with a law professor’s name in it and even cited an article of the Washington Post as a source of information. The said article was entirely based on false and fabricated facts and held not credibility.

Considering that the cyber space is an extension of physical world, the applicability of laws in physical world should also extend to the virtual world. In the case of Sanjeev Mishra v. Disciplinary Authority and General Manager, Bank (S.B. Civil Writ Petition No. 150/2021) the High Court of Rajasthan after analysing the facts and circumstances of the case endeavoured to include virtual workspaces within the ambit of ‘workplace’.

Various gig opportunities have been provided by the Metaverse to offer people a platform to set up their business online in the virtual world. This has raised questions regarding the applicability of workplace and labour laws on the same.  As per the POSH Act, a person supervising or operating the Metaverse platform which acts as an intermediary for people to earn money will be considered the principal employer. If any act of sexual harassment which occurs in such a situation, the liability of Metaverse as an intermediary along with the person or company operating the Metaverse platform would arise to provide the victim with an effective redressal mechanism under Section 19 of the POSH Act.

Source: https://www.livelaw.in/lawschool/articles/metaverse-pubg-virtual-reality-spacetech-framework-sexual-harassment-posh-228507?infinitescroll=1

British police are investigating the sexual assault of the girl, identified as being under the age of 16, in what is said to be the first investigation of its kind in the UK. The girl was reportedly wearing a virtual reality headset and playing an immersive game in the Metaverse when her avatar was attacked by several others. “Was this really rape? some asked and others have questioned this as “Couldn’t she have just turned it off?” It isn’t yet known what game she was playing when the alleged assault occurred, but obviously there isn’t an online game where the goal for adult players is to rape children. The fact that they are able to do so in the metaverse is the issue at the heart of this case, which has attracted international attention.

In 2022, the psychotherapist Nina Jane Patel, who does research on the Metaverse, wrote of the “surreal nightmare” of being gang-raped in Horizon Venues (now Horizon Worlds). “Unlike in the physical world, there’s a lack of clear and enforceable rules in the Metaverse,” said Patel.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/05/metaverse-sexual-assault-vr-game-online-safety-meta?CMP=share_btn_url

Metaverse user Jordan Belamire’s avatar was sexually groped without consent while playing a multiplayer game called QuiVr, in which her partner’s avatar “turned to her and started rubbing her virtual crotch and groin.” Belamire later wrote that the incident felt “real” and “violating.  The concern revolves around the fact that if the same inappropriate behaviours were to occur in the physical realm, the person committing the act would be penalized in accordance with the law. Yet, because of the lack of physicality, the acts become much more difficult to criminalize under current legal protections.

In support of this claim, psychologist and researcher Carol Balhetchet notes that “because VR is so immersive and [people] interact with it visually, audibly, mentally and emotionally, sensation floods their whole body as though they are physically present in the game

it is an undeniable fact that virtual sexual assault and harassment in the Metaverse space exists with little consequence. It has also been made evident that this virtual sexual abuse has the potential to cause adverse effects upon victims, both psychologically and physically.

Source: https://undergradlawreview.blog.fordham.edu/criminal-justice/misconduct-and-the-metaverse-legal-prevention-and-prosecution-of-virtual-sexual-harassment/

In India, online harassment is a punishable offence under the IPC Sections 354A, 354D, 499, 507, 508, etc, and Information Technology Act Sections 66C, 66D, 66E, 67, and 67A, among others. The victim can either lodge a complaint at a local police station or directly with the cyber-crime department of the police.

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Jyotica Bhasin