A reality check on criminality in virtual reality
...In Japan, a 43-yearold woman grew so enraged after her online husband ‘divorced’ her in the interactive Maple Story game, that she committed a virtual murder by eliminating him. The woman, Mayumi Tomari, was later arrested by the Japanese police. Then, there was the killing in Russia of a 33-year-old member of the Platinum clan of an MMORPG guild by a 22-year-old member of the rivalrous Coo-clocks clan. When the two virtual gang members confronted each other in the physical city of Ufa, Russia, the 33-year-old got severely beaten to death. ...
Hezbollah has developed its own shooter computer game named Special Force 2, which acts as a radicalisation medium for young jihadis. In the game, players earn points by launching Katyusha rockets at Israeli towns and becoming ‘suicide’ martyrs. A document leaked by Edward Snowden revealed that both the US and UK were spying on gamers by creating undercover avatars to snoop, recruit informers and perform mass interception between players in various games. Most police officers in the world may not have investigated any case involving a virtual world or MMORPG.
Though it may be tempting to ignore MMORPG crimes considering them virtual, therefore not ‘real’; police must remember that virtual crimes have real-world victims. The psychological and economic impact of virtual crimes on their victims is every bit real to their inhabitants, as is the physical world to most investigators. Finally, VR could be akin to spiritual reality. Unlike in reality, when we die in a video game, it’s not game over. Besides, VR like spirituality helps us have adventures in consciousness and explore our psyches through the mind-altering, dream-changing, ego-breaking VR technology.
— The author is director, Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC)
See the full story here: https://www.dtnext.in/News/City/2021/01/30235011/1273789/A-reality-check-on-criminality-in-virtual-reality.vpf
