I believe we all agree that both regulations on the platforms end and universal legislations should be employed when it comes to serious issues such as harassment. Laws would really help everyone understand the bottom line of what’s definitely not acceptable anywhere and regulations would provide the flexibility for those unintentionally violating rules and not get everyone in trouble. To enforce laws, platforms should make it easy to document evidence and track down perpetrators (this will protect both parties).
In my opinion, the metaverse poses several unique challenges regarding virtual sexual harassment that do not have straightforward solutions. Companies and policymakers have a lot of work ahead to address these issues responsibly. But with collaboration, the challenges will be easier to solve. I do not think sexual harassment happening in virtual spaces should be criminalized because it is still unclear that how certain activities should be addressed and be moderated. Maybe clear public guidelines and feedback systems could be the right way for now.
I think sexual harassment must be regulated with punishment to be able to impose concrete consequences. As mentioned in the lecture, harassment in the metaverse is a phenomenon that we are already seeing increasingly, so there must be ways to impose concrete action towards users doing it in order to minimize it and protect users (especially children in these spaces). The extent to which an action should be criminal or just against the community guidelines depends on the severity of the assault.
Sexual harassment in the metaverse ought to be punishable for the simple reason that if we do not condone it in real life, we should not condone it in (human-created) alternative realities either. To say that people can opt-out (by leaving) is simply putting the responsibility on the victim not to be harassed and signals that perpetrators get a pass. Of course, there are guidelines in place already and such regulation is no easy feat. However, it is important to strive for the right regulatory framework now before the metaverse gains real mass adoption, and certainly before the experience gets even more immersive than it is now. I fear that as the ‘feel’ of reality increases in these metaverses, so does the psychological harm caused by sexual harassment.
Given that the line between criminal and non-criminal behavior can be hazy in the metaverse, identifying instances of sexual harassment as a criminal act can be challenging, especially considering the emphasis on entertainment and user experience within the meta-universe community. It may not always be necessary to apply real-world rules to this virtual environment.Therefore, I think that sexual harassment does not constitute a criminal act in the metaverse.
Sexual assault in any form shouldn’t be condoned. Society has been seeing wider issues such as addiction, depression and fear as a result of social media, which has not been regulated from the start. If regulation doesn’t occur in something like the metaverse, that is so much more immersive than social platforms, the wider issues that it could have on society may be much more prevalent and harder to contain. Given that someone would be willing to commit sexual assault or violent behaviour in the metaverse and get away with it, what would stop them to feeling they have no rules in the real world? I feel both teams gave convincing arguments, but it is hard to argue that assault shouldn’t be recognised as a crime, so I do feel the against team had an uphill struggle as well.
I agree with Rose that documentation of incidents should be easier for victims, or at the very least, moderators. To expand on a point I mentioned in class, I think it’s very difficult to enforce legal criminalization of sexual assault in VR. It’s ultimately up to the platforms to regulate and ban individuals. Since VR experiences are ultimately virtual in nature, I don’t think lawmakers will find it compelling to criminalize sexual assault in VR since, unlike in sexual assault cases in real life, there is no physical harm (while psychiatric harm might be argued, the limited nature of this defense would lead to a lot of difficult cases). Ultimately, I think stricter punishments and regulation need to come from the companies themselves (with the companies being penalized and held responsible if the behavior is rampant on their platform, rather than trying to legally enforce standards on individuals).
Sexual harassment should be punished, would it be in virtual worlds, or in the real one. It is however important to mention the current limitations of legislation regarding sexual harassment in the real world, unfortunately leading to some cases where the victim didn’t gain justice. This brings up this realistic question: if sentencing sexual harassment in real-life is already “challenging” (my opinion is that it is not, but current facts make it seem like it is), how would governments implement valid and useful legislations towards these incidents in the virtual world? I feel like companies creating the game have way more power in the short-term. If we think about how Facebook or Twitter should and have to ban explicit/ abusive/ aggressive content to maintain good behaviour on their platform, so should these virtual games. It is the company that created the virtual platform in the first place that is responsible of what can be done on them.
Sexual harassment should be regulated and punished, with incidents being more effectively documented. Also, community guidelines and platform rules could be expanded and modified to better address the issue of sexual harassment. However, I think this should primarily be implemented and managed by the companies/platforms themselves, since criminalizing incidents that occur in the virtual realm can be very ambiguous and difficult. Of course, victims should have the freedom to push charges if they deem necessary, but as of now, I think it is a bit difficult to strictly criminalize sexual harassment in virtual spaces.
While I believe that sexual harassment should be criminalized in any situation, I can understand the argument against criminalizing it in the virtual world. I strongly believe however that companies creating these virtual worlds should be held responsible for criminal acts occurring. If the effort is focused on bolstering community guidelines and training moderators to uphold the guidelines then I can see harassment being controlled, if companies fail to push these efforts then that could be punished through criminalization.
I strongly believe that in whatever forms, format, and or platform sexual misconduct has to be recognized and punished accordingly. while the parameters of said actions will need to be adjusted alongside developments of digital platform not limited to Metaverse, immediate and continuous review of the guidelines should be the priority and not a reaction.
I absolutely believe that sexual harassment should not be tolerated in any form and should be punished. When sexual harassment occurs in the metaverse, however, I do think that the onus is ultimately on the companies themselves that operate these virtual worlds, rather than the law, to both enforce and be held accountable for enforcing punishments against such actions. Especially considering that virtual harassment can lead to real-world trauma and harm, users should be able to rely on these companies to provide worlds that are safe for everyone regardless of how they choose to represent themselves. Thus, I do feel that the companies themselves should be held to legal regulations and standards for ensuring that sexual harassment does not go unpunished within the platforms that they operate.
I believe that sexual harassment should be recognised as a crime in the metaverse. It is clear that harassment in online space can cause significant emotional trauma, just like it can in real life. I also believe that the companies behind virtual platforms should be required to have systems in place to protect users and remove/ban individuals who go against community.
In my opinion, any form of harassment should be subject to punishment, regardless of whether it occurs in the physical world or in a virtual environment such as the metaverse. Ideally, the same regulations that apply to harassment in the real world should be enforced for any country in which the harasser is located. However, if this is not possible, each metaverse world should have its own constitution and legal system to ensure that perpetrators of crimes, including harassment within the metaverse, are penalized appropriately. Such penalties could include expelling the offenders and permanently denying them access to the platform if the extent of the harm is limited to the metaverse. However, if the harm caused by the harassment extends beyond the virtual world, the real world laws must be applied.
I think that sexual harassment within the metaverse should be criminalized. Similar to last week’s topic, I think that it really comes down to the idea that as much as the metaverse should be a place where people can freely express themselves and possibly escape from reality, it cannot become a place where people can escape from the responsibilities of their actions. That being said, I do agree that each case can differ, and companies running the platforms do definitely have the most responsibility in creating guidelines accordingly. However, by recognizing this as a formal crime, and having laws above the platform guidelines, I think can not only help keep a certain amount of consistency with safety in the metaverse, but potentially also help the platforms to manage such actions and scenarios better by acting as a sort of guideline for the platform’s guidelines.
I think sexual harassment within the metaverse should be recognized as a crime in the metaverse. However, there should be a universal guideline, like a terms of agreement for anyone who uses the metaverse, which allows one to be criminalized without needing to deal with the gray lines of sexual harassment defined by different countries.
In my opinion sexualities harassment in metaverse should be recognised as a harassment and then as a crime too. This comes from a place of metaverse becoming a ubiquitous part of life and this kind of experience remaining unregulated will only increase. Also as metaverse being more immersive can have a deeper psychological impact and even psychosomatic implications. Having said that limitations of platform should be kept in mind and wider questions like which countries jurisdiction will a crime fall should be widely discussed
I think every form of sexual harassment, physically or non physically shall be criminalized no matter what the platform is. However, we need to find the most objective way to draw the line and clearly define where does a harassment starts so a misconduct report shall be taken more seriously and no false accusations could occur. Having blured lines for this could be dangerous as well (depp, and amber case) because the vagueness would lead to the confusion, even to the officials judging the misbehaviour
I think sexual harassment in metaverse should be considered as crime. Since in future using this platform probably will increase even more and people would spend more time on it, establishing security measurement is a must. It’s definitely not enough to just say “if you get uncomfortable when using, just don’t use it”. There should be improvement in the reporting mechanism and clear consequences for harassment. But I also think it’s important to not turn policies into tools for over-controlling and manipulating users to make certain decisions on this platform. I think it’s necessary to make different communities with different boundaries and standards on this platform so that people can join them based on their own preferences (of course security service should be applied to all of these communities, but security measurement could be different for each one).
I agree that sexual harassment should be defined as a crime which infringes the personal safety or dignity of the victim. Such should be judged by the law in the real world and then subject to punishment. There are examples that some people are accused of sexual harassment and the accused offender denied it, and evidence like CCTV recordings need to be presented to support the judgement. It is the same in the metaverse when a sexual harassment report has been raised. However, it could be difficult to artificially investigate every case by checking game recordings. This is the problem that needs to be solved before creating a fine overwatch system since artificial judgment regarding cheating or negative gaming is always the challenge in online games.
I completely agree on defining sexual harassment in metaverse as a crime..
Since defining the word sexual harassment is considered a “crime” whether it is physically or non-physically.
Especially if we are talking about metaverse, a platform where we are connected socially in a virtual world, it’s not like in a game, it’s the real future world where everyone will be connected virtually. I might assume metaverse is gonna be like a huge platform of virtual social media (SNS), so if someone in metaverse exposing someone else’s sensitive part without the consent of that person, even though it’s virtual, it’s still act as a crime..
I believe sexual harassment is a high sensitive topic that can have a huge negative impact in people and has to be taken seriously. That is why it should be targeted and all measures to erase it are not enough. Nevertheless, there are several constraints in Virtual Reality about the definition of sexual harassment and which measures would be more effective: criminalising it or monitoring it. It is key to put in place all the measures that are necessary to erase ut, even if at a high cost.
Harassment should never be taken lightly no matter what form it comes in… therefore I think it is a must that we have clear guidelines and rights to protect users offline as it might contribute to dangerous outcomes in their real lives.
「2」への 23 件のコメント
I believe we all agree that both regulations on the platforms end and universal legislations should be employed when it comes to serious issues such as harassment. Laws would really help everyone understand the bottom line of what’s definitely not acceptable anywhere and regulations would provide the flexibility for those unintentionally violating rules and not get everyone in trouble. To enforce laws, platforms should make it easy to document evidence and track down perpetrators (this will protect both parties).
In my opinion, the metaverse poses several unique challenges regarding virtual sexual harassment that do not have straightforward solutions. Companies and policymakers have a lot of work ahead to address these issues responsibly. But with collaboration, the challenges will be easier to solve. I do not think sexual harassment happening in virtual spaces should be criminalized because it is still unclear that how certain activities should be addressed and be moderated. Maybe clear public guidelines and feedback systems could be the right way for now.
I think sexual harassment must be regulated with punishment to be able to impose concrete consequences. As mentioned in the lecture, harassment in the metaverse is a phenomenon that we are already seeing increasingly, so there must be ways to impose concrete action towards users doing it in order to minimize it and protect users (especially children in these spaces). The extent to which an action should be criminal or just against the community guidelines depends on the severity of the assault.
Sexual harassment in the metaverse ought to be punishable for the simple reason that if we do not condone it in real life, we should not condone it in (human-created) alternative realities either. To say that people can opt-out (by leaving) is simply putting the responsibility on the victim not to be harassed and signals that perpetrators get a pass. Of course, there are guidelines in place already and such regulation is no easy feat. However, it is important to strive for the right regulatory framework now before the metaverse gains real mass adoption, and certainly before the experience gets even more immersive than it is now. I fear that as the ‘feel’ of reality increases in these metaverses, so does the psychological harm caused by sexual harassment.
Given that the line between criminal and non-criminal behavior can be hazy in the metaverse, identifying instances of sexual harassment as a criminal act can be challenging, especially considering the emphasis on entertainment and user experience within the meta-universe community. It may not always be necessary to apply real-world rules to this virtual environment.Therefore, I think that sexual harassment does not constitute a criminal act in the metaverse.
Sexual assault in any form shouldn’t be condoned. Society has been seeing wider issues such as addiction, depression and fear as a result of social media, which has not been regulated from the start. If regulation doesn’t occur in something like the metaverse, that is so much more immersive than social platforms, the wider issues that it could have on society may be much more prevalent and harder to contain. Given that someone would be willing to commit sexual assault or violent behaviour in the metaverse and get away with it, what would stop them to feeling they have no rules in the real world? I feel both teams gave convincing arguments, but it is hard to argue that assault shouldn’t be recognised as a crime, so I do feel the against team had an uphill struggle as well.
I agree with Rose that documentation of incidents should be easier for victims, or at the very least, moderators. To expand on a point I mentioned in class, I think it’s very difficult to enforce legal criminalization of sexual assault in VR. It’s ultimately up to the platforms to regulate and ban individuals. Since VR experiences are ultimately virtual in nature, I don’t think lawmakers will find it compelling to criminalize sexual assault in VR since, unlike in sexual assault cases in real life, there is no physical harm (while psychiatric harm might be argued, the limited nature of this defense would lead to a lot of difficult cases). Ultimately, I think stricter punishments and regulation need to come from the companies themselves (with the companies being penalized and held responsible if the behavior is rampant on their platform, rather than trying to legally enforce standards on individuals).
Sexual harassment should be punished, would it be in virtual worlds, or in the real one. It is however important to mention the current limitations of legislation regarding sexual harassment in the real world, unfortunately leading to some cases where the victim didn’t gain justice. This brings up this realistic question: if sentencing sexual harassment in real-life is already “challenging” (my opinion is that it is not, but current facts make it seem like it is), how would governments implement valid and useful legislations towards these incidents in the virtual world? I feel like companies creating the game have way more power in the short-term. If we think about how Facebook or Twitter should and have to ban explicit/ abusive/ aggressive content to maintain good behaviour on their platform, so should these virtual games. It is the company that created the virtual platform in the first place that is responsible of what can be done on them.
Sexual harassment should be regulated and punished, with incidents being more effectively documented. Also, community guidelines and platform rules could be expanded and modified to better address the issue of sexual harassment. However, I think this should primarily be implemented and managed by the companies/platforms themselves, since criminalizing incidents that occur in the virtual realm can be very ambiguous and difficult. Of course, victims should have the freedom to push charges if they deem necessary, but as of now, I think it is a bit difficult to strictly criminalize sexual harassment in virtual spaces.
While I believe that sexual harassment should be criminalized in any situation, I can understand the argument against criminalizing it in the virtual world. I strongly believe however that companies creating these virtual worlds should be held responsible for criminal acts occurring. If the effort is focused on bolstering community guidelines and training moderators to uphold the guidelines then I can see harassment being controlled, if companies fail to push these efforts then that could be punished through criminalization.
I strongly believe that in whatever forms, format, and or platform sexual misconduct has to be recognized and punished accordingly. while the parameters of said actions will need to be adjusted alongside developments of digital platform not limited to Metaverse, immediate and continuous review of the guidelines should be the priority and not a reaction.
I absolutely believe that sexual harassment should not be tolerated in any form and should be punished. When sexual harassment occurs in the metaverse, however, I do think that the onus is ultimately on the companies themselves that operate these virtual worlds, rather than the law, to both enforce and be held accountable for enforcing punishments against such actions. Especially considering that virtual harassment can lead to real-world trauma and harm, users should be able to rely on these companies to provide worlds that are safe for everyone regardless of how they choose to represent themselves. Thus, I do feel that the companies themselves should be held to legal regulations and standards for ensuring that sexual harassment does not go unpunished within the platforms that they operate.
I believe that sexual harassment should be recognised as a crime in the metaverse. It is clear that harassment in online space can cause significant emotional trauma, just like it can in real life. I also believe that the companies behind virtual platforms should be required to have systems in place to protect users and remove/ban individuals who go against community.
In my opinion, any form of harassment should be subject to punishment, regardless of whether it occurs in the physical world or in a virtual environment such as the metaverse. Ideally, the same regulations that apply to harassment in the real world should be enforced for any country in which the harasser is located. However, if this is not possible, each metaverse world should have its own constitution and legal system to ensure that perpetrators of crimes, including harassment within the metaverse, are penalized appropriately. Such penalties could include expelling the offenders and permanently denying them access to the platform if the extent of the harm is limited to the metaverse. However, if the harm caused by the harassment extends beyond the virtual world, the real world laws must be applied.
I think that sexual harassment within the metaverse should be criminalized. Similar to last week’s topic, I think that it really comes down to the idea that as much as the metaverse should be a place where people can freely express themselves and possibly escape from reality, it cannot become a place where people can escape from the responsibilities of their actions. That being said, I do agree that each case can differ, and companies running the platforms do definitely have the most responsibility in creating guidelines accordingly. However, by recognizing this as a formal crime, and having laws above the platform guidelines, I think can not only help keep a certain amount of consistency with safety in the metaverse, but potentially also help the platforms to manage such actions and scenarios better by acting as a sort of guideline for the platform’s guidelines.
I think sexual harassment within the metaverse should be recognized as a crime in the metaverse. However, there should be a universal guideline, like a terms of agreement for anyone who uses the metaverse, which allows one to be criminalized without needing to deal with the gray lines of sexual harassment defined by different countries.
In my opinion sexualities harassment in metaverse should be recognised as a harassment and then as a crime too. This comes from a place of metaverse becoming a ubiquitous part of life and this kind of experience remaining unregulated will only increase. Also as metaverse being more immersive can have a deeper psychological impact and even psychosomatic implications. Having said that limitations of platform should be kept in mind and wider questions like which countries jurisdiction will a crime fall should be widely discussed
I think every form of sexual harassment, physically or non physically shall be criminalized no matter what the platform is. However, we need to find the most objective way to draw the line and clearly define where does a harassment starts so a misconduct report shall be taken more seriously and no false accusations could occur. Having blured lines for this could be dangerous as well (depp, and amber case) because the vagueness would lead to the confusion, even to the officials judging the misbehaviour
I think sexual harassment in metaverse should be considered as crime. Since in future using this platform probably will increase even more and people would spend more time on it, establishing security measurement is a must. It’s definitely not enough to just say “if you get uncomfortable when using, just don’t use it”. There should be improvement in the reporting mechanism and clear consequences for harassment. But I also think it’s important to not turn policies into tools for over-controlling and manipulating users to make certain decisions on this platform. I think it’s necessary to make different communities with different boundaries and standards on this platform so that people can join them based on their own preferences (of course security service should be applied to all of these communities, but security measurement could be different for each one).
I agree that sexual harassment should be defined as a crime which infringes the personal safety or dignity of the victim. Such should be judged by the law in the real world and then subject to punishment. There are examples that some people are accused of sexual harassment and the accused offender denied it, and evidence like CCTV recordings need to be presented to support the judgement. It is the same in the metaverse when a sexual harassment report has been raised. However, it could be difficult to artificially investigate every case by checking game recordings. This is the problem that needs to be solved before creating a fine overwatch system since artificial judgment regarding cheating or negative gaming is always the challenge in online games.
I completely agree on defining sexual harassment in metaverse as a crime..
Since defining the word sexual harassment is considered a “crime” whether it is physically or non-physically.
Especially if we are talking about metaverse, a platform where we are connected socially in a virtual world, it’s not like in a game, it’s the real future world where everyone will be connected virtually. I might assume metaverse is gonna be like a huge platform of virtual social media (SNS), so if someone in metaverse exposing someone else’s sensitive part without the consent of that person, even though it’s virtual, it’s still act as a crime..
I believe sexual harassment is a high sensitive topic that can have a huge negative impact in people and has to be taken seriously. That is why it should be targeted and all measures to erase it are not enough. Nevertheless, there are several constraints in Virtual Reality about the definition of sexual harassment and which measures would be more effective: criminalising it or monitoring it. It is key to put in place all the measures that are necessary to erase ut, even if at a high cost.
Harassment should never be taken lightly no matter what form it comes in… therefore I think it is a must that we have clear guidelines and rights to protect users offline as it might contribute to dangerous outcomes in their real lives.