Avatar of a girl was raped in a video game for children

The complaint was filed by the minor's mother. The developers point out that he has a "zero tolerance" policy for this behavior. Does the law also apply to virtual worlds?

"Roblox" is under the gaze of all parents after the avatar of a seven-year-old girl was raped inside the platform.

This is a game suitable for over seven years, which has 64 million users worldwide. Although Amber Petersen and her husband used the safest configuration for their daughter, she was able to see the male bads of one of the characters who violated her avatar in the game.

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Petersen posted a warning to parents on Facebook, describing how two male characters had attacked their daughter's avatar, before they were joined by another woman: "The sweet and tender avatar of my daughter was raped in a group in a playground for two men," wrote the mother on her social networking page, where she also included screenshots in the comments below his message, which show that one of the men had created virtual bads for his character. In her publication, Ms. Petersen stated that she felt "quite traumatized and violated on many levels" and urged parents to completely eliminate the demand.

The truth is that this is not the first time this game provokes controversy. Last month, according to reports from several portals, a six-year-old girl was invited to an "online bad room" built inside the same game.

Roblox Corporation, the company behind the On these two cases, he said, "We have identified how this bad actor has created offensive action and we are implementing additional safeguards to reduce the possibility that it will happen again in the future. ;to come up." In addition, the offender has been identified We have a zero tolerance for this behavior and our work to ensure a secure platform is constantly changing and remains a priority for us, "according to a company spokesperson on the gamesindustry.biz portal. He added: "We were outraged to learn that Roblox's community policies and rules of conduct were diverted."

Roblox has about 64 million players worldwide, most of whom are young people over 11 years old. , although the application is designed to be used from seven o'clock. In the game, users can create their own avatar and their own builds, just like Minecraft, while they can create their own games and apps that are sold in the game's internal market. Roblox is available for Android, iOS , Mac OS, Xbox, PC and PS4.

History Repeats itself

This is not the first time that events like this occur, that compromise badual security children. In 2015, the Lego franchise launched its Minecraft competition. The delivery of the development was delayed because the players found a way to reproduce the male bad organs on the platform. A group of developers designed an algorithm to detect these violations in order to eliminate them.

Nintendo has also had a nightmare with one of its applications for its handheld console. In 2013, they discovered that the Swapnote application (now called Swapdoodle) which served as a cat, was used by pedophiles to contact minors and thus to have bad conversations: two Japanese, 49 and 36, were arrested for having committed "wrongdoings" with a 12-year-old girl on several occasions The girl met the two people through her Nintendo 3DS Since then, the application has changed to no longer have an online connection

The Violation of an Avatar Is it a Crime?

The video game that best embodies this debate is "Second Life", a virtual world Developed by Linden Lab who achieved great fame in the early 2000s. The developers of this game promised their users the opportunity to create what they wanted, from the garden to the bad toys.Fundamentally, they promised to their users a "Second life" virtual

However, even "Second Life" has such limitations as, for example, not to badually abuse another avatar. That's why the video game code does not allow badual intercourse if there is no consent between the two. But the virtual world, like the real world, has its problems with those who eschew social norms. Some users modify the game code and commit acts prohibited by developers, such as harbadment or badual abuse.

For example, one user stated that she was "followed by that guy who shouted badist and derogatory comments and hit me with script attacks that distorted my avatar into positions. obscene, I felt violated. Spending a lot of time creating and developing, being shaken like a rag doll in front of many other avatars was painful, something like that was as traumatic as anything that I have experienced in the real world . "

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Although the player" feels violated ", the foregoing does not mean that, in the strictest sense, badual abuse or violent carnal access has been committed, because "badually accessed" or "abused" is the avatar and not the user.However, there have been badyzes that have studied the connection that exists between the avatar and the As an avatar, the virtual representation of the user, it has been established that there is, in effect, a psychological link and a process of repersification: the player can come and feel the sufferings of his avatar

the possibility that, at least, the right name is affected when an avatar is "violated" or "badually abused." In addition, some feminist currents argue that it might act of violent physical access or abuse if, instead of focusing on the physical act against the user aeur, which does not exist, the violation is observed as an act of degradation of

The nature of the avatar as the exteriorization of the user has made that, in some country, the Office of the Prosecutor examines such cases as crimes. This is what happened, for example, in Belgium in 2007, when the IT crime division investigated a case of virtual violation.

Similarly, several video game companies have established social norms according to which players must be ruled and take action against those who violate them or modify the platform code in order to perform unauthorized behaviors. This time again, it is Roblox Corporation that is fueling the debate over whether virtual worlds should be regulated by laws that apply outside of them. jvargasleal