Just Type No?

A hot tub party on a Thursday night? Where the heck do you work??

Yeah, this is an interesting avenue and could open a can of worms. Unfortunately, cyber bullying is a huge problem at all levels and it's not easily controllable. They're going to have to get ahead of this too. I'm not in the gaming world so I don't quite understand it though. I never really upgraded from the nintendo systems beyond that where my friends did play a lot of Halo, COD, and Madden. I usually just played at their houses, but I wouldn't even know where to start with meta and the virtual world. As others have said, how could you sit there and endure that versus just shutting it off? There not a saved/unsaved feature that would just disregard that occurrence and they can report those people? You'd think there would be a report feature and that person could get them banned from playing said game. I also wasn't able to read the article since the filter at work isn't allowing me to.
I was a loan officer at the time. When the daughter of a client that the bank salivated over invites you, you go. Besides the fact she was attractive also. Closest that bank ever got to that family.
 
I guess my thought on being a good manager is be flexible.

WFH is not the devil. WFH recognizes that people need some balance in life. If you hire good people, they will make it work.

All of my kids have flexibility on when and where they work. Four engineers and a scientist, sometimes you actually need to see a thing in person. But with rapid expansion of a company, there isn’t enough room for everyone to be there at once. Several of them have managers that always communicate on the phone or electronically because even if they are in plant, they aren’t even in the same building.

The son with long haul Covid was recognized by the president of his large company for his work in resolving a serious problem. Fortunately his manager recognized his value and trusted him to get his work done through days he couldn’t keep food down, was having heart palpitations, was too dizzy to drive, or had a battery of doctor’s appointments.

Also I am not a fan of trying to meet people to date at work, having been sexually harassed in the workplace. My sister was harassed worse than me, threatened with losing her job when she was poor and straight out of college. So if the excuse to make people go into the office is so they can find a date, I think that’s crazy.

Was talking with friends this weekend actually that we've lost the "Third Space" and wfh can make that a bit more difficult but - WFH has tremendous advantages for groups often previously ignored or marginalized in person. People with chronic illness, minorities, mothers of young kids, - groups who have all benefited from WFH. This all belongs in the WFH thread anyway but I tend to agree with you.
 
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I guess my thought on being a good manager is be flexible.

WFH is not the devil. WFH recognizes that people need some balance in life. If you hire good people, they will make it work.

All of my kids have flexibility on when and where they work. Four engineers and a scientist, sometimes you actually need to see a thing in person. But with rapid expansion of a company, there isn’t enough room for everyone to be there at once. Several of them have managers that always communicate on the phone or electronically because even if they are in plant, they aren’t even in the same building.

The son with long haul Covid was recognized by the president of his large company for his work in resolving a serious problem. Fortunately his manager recognized his value and trusted him to get his work done through days he couldn’t keep food down, was having heart palpitations, was too dizzy to drive, or had a battery of doctor’s appointments.

Also I am not a fan of trying to meet people to date at work, having been sexually harassed in the workplace. My sister was harassed worse than me, threatened with losing her job when she was poor and straight out of college. So if the excuse to make people go into the office is so they can find a date, I think that’s crazy.
I’m not saying that is the reason to be in office, just saying that many people meet their SO others there (which includes meeting through co-workers, Companies you deal with, going out for lunch or golf with co-workers and running into people).
 
Was talking with friends this weekend actually that we've lost the "Third Space" and wfh can make that a bit more difficult but - WFH has tremendous advantages for groups often previously ignored or marginalized in person. People with chronic illness, minorities, mothers of young kids, - groups who have all benefited from WFH. This all belongs in the WFH thread anyway but I tend to agree with you.
Currently three kids have girlfriends. Where they met them? One at an apartment complex event, one through volunteer work on a Habitat house, and one at a pickleball court.
 
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I’m not saying that is the reason to be in office, just saying that many people meet their SO others there (which includes meeting through co-workers, Companies you deal with, going out for lunch or golf with co-workers and running into people).
You can have work functions with WFH too and know your coworkers and be friends with them. Not sure why you brought WFH up. My son hired during a time when almost everyone was locked down still taught his work mentor how to play guitar and golfed with coworkers.
 
I think the responsibility for this lies with the hosting company as well as the "rapists." They should keep their site clear of such activities, especially when minors are involved. It's not as simple as simply unplugging, or cyber-bullying wouldn't be a problem.
 
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I think the responsibility for this lies with the hosting company as well as the "rapists." They should keep their site clear of such activities, especially when minors are involved. It's not as simple as simply unplugging, or cyber-bullying wouldn't be a problem.
That's kind of where I was getting at with a report feature as if people are being treated poorly or out of line. It definitely should be on the maker, odd that this was even allowable in the first place, but it's like online platforms asking them if they're 18 when I'm sure patrons partaking wouldn't always be 18 to pass through accepting their terms and conditions with an age limit.
 
Obviously this is uncharted waters in many ways, and there isn't a lot of info I think would be necessary for true context. With that said...

I think I would probably look at this more as "sexual harassment" than "rape" or "assault" since it's not physical or in the physical world. Is this like a bunch of boys surrounding a girl in the gym after school and saying vulgar things and gestures without physical touching, or more like a girl getting a bunch of **** picks put in her locker, bag, etc? I'd personally lean towards assault instead of harassment because the girl has a reason to fear for her physical harm if she knows them and may not feel like she has a way out - which is somewhat different from this case.

In this instance, where I think it differs from my example above is that the girl has, in theory, more ways to remove herself from the situation (taking off headset, logging out of game, reporting users, etc). That's why I'd probably lean more towards harassment than assault or rape - there isn't physical harm, or the imminent fear of.

Something to think about though is - are these people in her area and know her or random strangers in the world? Does that matter? Is it assault in that situation because she has reason to fear physical harm because she knows them? Is it still "just" harassment because they're potentially (hypothetically in this scenario) anonymous?

But it's certainly a whole new world of scenarios and potential laws to think about.
 
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I think the responsibility for this lies with the hosting company as well as the "rapists." They should keep their site clear of such activities, especially when minors are involved. It's not as simple as simply unplugging, or cyber-bullying wouldn't be a problem.
I agree.
There is not enough pressure put on the huge media platforms for the content that they host and provide. They do some content policing, but primarily they pass the buck & blame onto the user under the guise of providing a platform of free speech and expression.

As for the topic -
Trauma is Trauma
It's a video talk by Kevin Smith talking about his issues and treatment. The whole video is worth a watch, but the quick message that is important for this conversation is at 5:14 -


If a developing child is allowed unfettered exposure to content of their choosing (or potentially worse, the choosing of a media company whose goal is to keep the child using their product) there will be times where children have negative experiences. Some will be traumatic.

2701a4e1-3207-4df5-bf93-ad6078df5b4c_text.gif


This isn't the same as just a couple decades ago. Smart phone ownership in the United States crossed 50% a little over 10 years ago. We don't know what the end result for children being inundated by all this media will be, but it seems like more people are at least thinking about it in the past few years.
Steve Jobs famously said this about the iPad shortly after it came out when asked how his children (he had an 11 and 14 year year-old at the time in addition to older children I believe) -
"We don’t allow the iPad in the home. We think it’s too dangerous for them in effect."
 
I think the responsibility for this lies with the hosting company as well as the "rapists." They should keep their site clear of such activities, especially when minors are involved. It's not as simple as simply unplugging, or cyber-bullying wouldn't be a problem.
Isn't it though? If a kid doesn't have the willpower to "unplug" themselves, the parents should step in. I think part of surviving in this world is learning to remove yourself from bad situations. Ideally, the world would be so wonderful there are no bad situations to avoid. Unfortunately that will never be the case.

I look at it from a parenting point of view. If something like cyberbullying is happening to my child, what course of action can I control that will most likely help the situation? Attempt to take on the entire world's internet policing apparatus? Or remove my child from the situation by making them "unplug" from whatever game, or site that they are experiencing problems on?
 
I’m not sure who has authority to prosecute this (do you use the girl’s location, meta’s location, etc.?), but it absolutely should be charged as harassment. I looked to see what the game was, and it’s Facebooks standard VR game, so I think this would just fall under sexual harassment.

Regarding why she didn’t just turn it off, she might have; I didn’t see any reports of how long she was in the game.

But it’s also understandable if she didn’t immediately turn the game off. I’m sure most of us have had a situation where we were really stressed and it didn’t occur to us to do something that was in hindsight really obvious. The game uses a headset and is designed to be immersive. Having a bunch of people surround you and yell vile things at you sounds incredibly stressful, and I’m an adult man. It would be even worse if I was a teenage girl and adult men were yelling sexually violent things at me. Add in that some people “shut down” when experiencing something like that (why we’ve moved away from “no means no” and stopped requiring victims to resist sexual assaults) and it’s understandable why she might not have immediately turned the game off.
 
Isn't it though? If a kid doesn't have the willpower to "unplug" themselves, the parents should step in. I think part of surviving in this world is learning to remove yourself from bad situations. Ideally, the world would be so wonderful there are no bad situations to avoid. Unfortunately that will never be the case.

I look at it from a parenting point of view. If something like cyberbullying is happening to my child, what course of action can I control that will most likely help the situation? Attempt to take on the entire world's internet policing apparatus? Or remove my child from the situation by making them "unplug" from whatever game, or site that they are experiencing problems on?
Parents should be the first line of defense but many find it nearly impossible to monitor all their child's online activities. Society and the tech companies have a responsibility also. I think parts of society are rethinking allowing children and adolescents unlimited access to phones and the the internet. Like taking phones away from kids at school. Well, duh.
 
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Parents should be the first line of defense but many find it nearly impossible to monitor all their child's online activities. Society and the tech companies have a responsibility also. I think parts of society are rethinking allowing children and adolescents unlimited access to phones and the the internet. Like taking phones away from kids at school. Well, duh.
I don't think tech companies can be responsible for preventing bullying. Bullying is too broad a term. I think their responsibility essentially ends and monitoring illegal activity. Parents don't needs to monitor all their kids on-line activities. That would be too cumbersome, and probably too heavy handed. I think if a parent has a good relationship with their kid, they should be able to tell if something is "off" and confront them about it. That's not easy. The alternative is to demand that society is responsible for monitoring or stopping bullying? Good luck with that. Bullying is as old as humanity itself and will never go away.
 
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That's kind of where I was getting at with a report feature as if people are being treated poorly or out of line. It definitely should be on the maker, odd that this was even allowable in the first place, but it's like online platforms asking them if they're 18 when I'm sure patrons partaking wouldn't always be 18 to pass through accepting their terms and conditions with an age limit.
I don't know for a fact, but every online thing I've been on has a report feature and I'm sure it's the same with meta. Beyond that I'm not sure what else they can do. What the act probably amounted too was people crowding their avatars around her avatar and making canned gestures. Probably the worst part of it would be what was said to her, but I'm not sure how you can police that other than remove people who violate policy, which I'm sure they do.
 
Just log off. Report those who did it and get them booted. Maybe don’t go back
Is that like "Don't wear such a short skirt"? And before I get slammed, please understand that I have no gaming background other than watching my 7-year-old grandchild play Star Wars Lego guy whatever-its-called or start to learn Minecraft.

I'm also a female who has no idea what I actually would do in a similar situation. I just know that reading some of these comments makes me think what seems so easy and obvious to one person could be nearly impossible to another. It's one thing to debate potential charges based on very little real evidence, and quite another to state what the person in question "should have done."

And reminds me that virtual can provide easy access to non-virtuous opportunities.
 

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