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I was 'gang raped' in the metaverse -the trauma was similar to a real-world assault
Four avatars charged the metaverse expert and attacked
One attacker sneered, ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t love it!’
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By ROB WAUGH PUBLISHED: UPDATED: 07:44 EST, 13 January 2024

A woman has revealed she was 'virtually gang raped' by four male avatars in Meta's Horizon Worlds - and she said the trauma is similar to a real-world assault. Speaking to DailyMail.com, psychotherapist and start-up co-founder Nina Patel said that her attackers may have felt ‘disinhibited’ due to being in a virtual world.

While she does not know the attacker's true identities, all four had male voices - and one even said to her, 'Don’t pretend you didn’t love it' after the attack. Patel told DailyMail.com that the 'distressing experience' happened just 60 seconds after joining the Meta-owned virtual world - a shared 3D space where avatars often meet random people.

Nina Patel, co-founder of Kabuni, told DailyMail.com about how she was 'virtually gang raped' by four male avatars in Meta's Horizon Worlds. Patel was targeted simply for having a female avatar, an experience she described as 'surreal' and 'horrible.' ‘They relentlessly harassed me and then proceeded to (what can only be described) as the sexual assault of my avatar,' she explained. 'Their behavior was offensive and disturbing.’

Horizon Worlds is a pioneering metaverse space owned by Mark Zuckerberg's Meta - a free 3D world where avatars can explore and talk to each other, accessible via Meta Quests headsets and other hardware. But like many VR spaces, it’s not heavily policed, and sexism, homophobia and racism are rife, researchers have said.

‘The attack likely occurred in that instance because of the anonymity and perceived lack of consequences within the VR space,' Patel said. Patel is co-founder of Kabuni, and is an expert in metaverse and VR - hence she was one of the earlier users of Horizon Worlds.

The attack saw the male avatars mobbing her character, yelling abuse at her and taking photos in-game - with one jeering attacker making a very crude suggestion over what she should do with the images.