A woman’s avatar in Facebook parent Meta’s new Horizon Worlds platform was sexually assaulted, according to advocacy group SumOfUs’ report.
The 21-year-old woman, who works for SumOfUs as a researcher, was in a virtual room on Horizon Worlds, a metaverse platform released last December in the U.S. and Canada. She was in the room with two male avatars that were making obscene comments to her, and one of them was very close to her. SumOfUs included a clip of the event in its report this month focused on sexual violence, hate speech and content moderation issues at Meta.
Sexual harassment has been an ongoing issue that SumOfUs is researching. Earlier this year, another woman named Nina Jane Patel reported being “virtually gang raped” within a minute of logging onto Horizon.