‘CESSPOOL’

Researcher Says Her Avatar Got Raped After One Hour in the Metaverse

Multiple users have reported alleged sexual assaults on the platform, where researchers said they experienced slurs and witnessed gun violence.

A researcher says that within one hour of logging into Horizon World—the virtual-reality social-networking platform owned by Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta—her avatar was raped. In a report titled “Metaverse: another cesspool of toxic content,” from nonprofit advocacy group SumOfUs, the researcher said she was attending a virtual private party where attendees asked her to disable a privacy setting that prevents users from moving within four feet of one another. She “was led into a private room at a party where she was raped by a user who kept telling her to turn around so he could do it from behind while users outside the window could see,” the report reads. “One part of my brain was like WTF is happening, the other part was like this isn’t a real body, and another part was like, this is important research,” the researcher writes. The allegation joins multiple others on the nascent platform, Insider reports, and SumOfUs also claimed researchers witnessed gun violence, as well as racial and homophobic slurs.