Is Virtual Crime Real Crime?

 There are classes of offences that are quite different to others and that difference is problematic for thinkers and doers alike.

A recent report from the BBC tells us that a girl, under 16, was engaging in a VR game (or based on other reports I have heard, was engaging in a VR environment*) when her avatar was either “attacked” or “gang raped” online. Police are apparently investigating this.

Legally she can’t have been raped due to the nature of what rape currently is. The reports suggest that she “suffered the same psychological trauma as someone who has been raped in the real world”. So far, I have not seen anything that suggests that we have any evidence for this, other than opinion, but if she has been assessed by people who work with people who have been raped then this might very well be true. The problem with using media reports as jumping off points for thinking is that there is infrequently the necessary detail.

I think this raises some interesting issues for reflection.

If I engage in a VR world where I am able to access weapons and then shoot and kill you, have I committed murder (and this is whether your avatar is lost or is simply paused for a bit)? If I wound you in VR, so your avatar is permanently impacted have I committed an assault? Commentators tell us that one day we will be able to experience all of the physical implications of our VR interactions, including sexual ones (there is an area of interest called teledildonics), and that’s why, because of the future, we must see virtual crime, now, as the same as actual crime. I am not convinced but I am not denying this is an interesting issue. Of course, we might simply ensure that certain kinds of behaviours are impossible in VR, so violence is not possible, sexual violence is not possible, non-consenting sex is not possible, and so on. In a world where we can make harm to others impossible why would that be an infringement on anyone’s rights, unless if we accept that I have the right to live in a world where I can be virtually set upon and virtually gang raped. It seems to me that we have that in the real world so why would I need it online?

The physical issues do make this more complex.

What about if we just think about non-physical behaviour? If I threaten you to your face is that likely to be more concerning than the same threat done virtually? I doubt it, unless for some reason my threat online cannot be carried out (as in, it is a threat of immediate physical violence and currently I am in Bangkok and you are in Beeston). I expect they are equally concerning. Threats expressed on email are no different, in my opinion, to those said to your face (except the person is more of a coward). Someone screaming in real life that you are a fucking imbecile might be more immediately emotional but probably no more upsetting than reading YOU ARE A FUCKING IMBECILE. It probably depends on the messenger. Someone you already regard as an idiot has a lot less power when they express another idiotic view, whether spoken or typed.

So, if my starting point is that non-physical behaviour is likely the same virtually as in real life, and that physical behaviour across the two domains is different, where is that dividing line or do I have to accept that if non-physical behaviour is the same, there are few reasons to think that physical behaviour isn’t?

Let’s go back to rape.

How much of rape is traumatic because of the physical elements? I have no idea and can’t imagine a scenario where one can undergo the physical experience of rape without all of the other associated experiences (any of the other senses, plus the impact of cognition).

How much of those other experiences could be experienced as negative and traumatic? Could we think of the feelings of being over-powered, loss of control, uncertain future, the sounds of a rape, whether real or virtual, being enough to cause trauma? Loud sounds scare me. I once jumped into a hedge because I could hear a motorcycle engine coming closer and closer and couldn’t see it. Just the sound scared me enough into flight. I went to a Motorhead concert in Bergen, and it was so loud that I spent 90 minutes feeling terrified.

If you hear voices saying they are doing something to you, even if they actually are not, could that be enough to trigger your cognition to think that it is happening? I can make myself feel more positive by repeating positive self-statements (look up the research on Velten Statements), so could I react as if I was being raped if surrounded by voices shouting at me, saying what they are doing, telling me I am weak and I am being assaulted and blow-by-blow an account of an on-going rape is expressed to me? I can’t feel it. In VR if I see someone touch me can I be so immersed in the VR that despite their being no real touch and no technology-assisted touch, I feel touch? My brain making sense of the world that I am in?

There are so many parts of this that need to be understood and so many parts that may never be understood because the ethics of finding out would cause all manner of problems. What we can do is think and see where that leads us.

In a similar vein, if I am interacting with what I believe to be a child, in a sexual manner, but it is actually an adult, have I committed a crime? I am not inciting a child, I am not sexualising a child, I am not sexually communicating with a child…what is my crime? Is it that all the things I was doing, although perfectly acceptable with an adult, were done with the thought of a child? If I think of having sex with your wife, or your married mother or sister or cousin, am I committing adultery (let’s assume that I am married)? If I am committing adultery then is the other person too (that’s a bit of a leap, but let’s jump together)?

I can think of killing you, attacking you, raping you, and we could also talk about it online and in some circumstances, it wouldn’t be a crime. So, are these mock crimes the same as real crimes?

Mock turtle soup is not made from turtles, so I can eat it without breaking any laws that might protect green turtles. Mockingbirds are real birds, but they mimic other birds, but are not those other birds. Mock Tudor architecture is not Tudor architecture, it is a copy of it and frequently leaves out some of the complexities of the original. They are not genuine, but similar. You might have done well in your mock exams – they weren’t your actual exams, but they were similar.

Mock exams are thought to be useful to predict the outcome of actual exams. Are we using mock crimes in a similar way, that if an adult interacts with another adult, whilst thinking that person is a child, this predicts what they would actually do? So, if I think of your sister that predicts what I will actually do, whether that is online when I attack her, or just in my head, or if it is in the real world and I threaten her?

Be careful what you think and what you do. As proverbs (4.23) tells us, “Be very careful about what you think. Your thoughts run your life. Don’t use your mouth to tell lies. Don’t ever say things that are not true. Keep your eyes focused on what is right. Keep looking straight ahead to what is good. Be careful what you do. Always do what is right. Do not do anything unless it is right. Stay away from evil.”

Yes, stay away from evil.

 

*This difference may be important as one commentator has suggested that there are different underlying rules in games and environments, so to compare the two and the possible outcome for players makes little sense. For me this is an empirical question rather than one to be simply stated by a self-appointed “metaverse expert”.

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