Preventing another gang rape: Is Facebook's new tool enough to stop sexual assault in the metaverse?

"Don’t pretend you didn’t love it," said one of Nina Jane Patel's attackers after sexually assaulting her. Unlike the more typical reports of aggravated assaults on women, this didn't happen in real life; it took place in the metaverse.

One of the test users of Facebook's new virtual universe, Patel claimed that as soon as she entered the programme, she was gang-raped by men.

On Friday, Facebook's parent Meta Platforms said it is launching a tool for people using its virtual reality social platforms to maintain personal space boundaries, as concerns have mounted about user safety and sexual harassment.

Its new "personal boundary" tool will make users feel like they have nearly 1.2 metres between their virtual avatar and others when they access the immersive Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues apps through VR headsets.

The company said in a blog post that this new default setting would make it easier to avoid unwanted interactions. The change comes as users of VR platforms including Horizon Worlds have raised alarms about virtual groping and other abusive behaviour.

The development comes too late for people like Patel whose experience has prompted the changes.

"My experience of sexual harassment was, to say the least, shocking. Shocking because I am not accustomed to be spoken to in such derogatory ways, maybe back in 1996, but certainly not in 2021," she wrote in a post on Medium in December.

"A horrible experience that happened so fast and before I could even think about putting the safety barrier in place. I froze".

Patel stated that the virtual environment offers traumatic experiences even for test users. Describing her experiences, Patel stated that within 60 seconds of entering Meta, she was verbally abused by men, gang