Meta Adds ‘Personal Boundary’ Tool After Virtual Sexual Assault Allegation

The function prevents digital avatars from coming within a 4-foot distance from one another to “avoid unwanted interaction,” according to a company exec

article-image

Source: MetaQuest

share

key takeaways

  • One woman said that “within 60 seconds of joining” Meta’s Horizon Worlds, she was “verbally and sexually harassed”
  • Meta stock is up 0.65% to $239.31 per share

Following reports of sexual assaults in Meta’s metaverse, the company Friday rolled out what it is calling a “personal boundary” tool.

The function prevents avatars from coming within a 4-foot distance from one another in the company’s Horizon Worlds and Horizon Venues to “create more personal space” for users and to “make it easier to avoid unwanted interaction,” Horizon Worlds Vice President Vivek Sharma said.

“We are intentionally rolling out Personal Boundary as always on, by default, because we think this will help to set behavioral norms—and that’s important for a relatively new medium like VR,” Sharma said.

The rollout comes following reports of misconduct in the social media giant’s metaverse from a beta tester of Horizon Worlds last year.

Nina Jane Patel, vice president of Metaverse Research at Kabuni Ventures, said that as she tested the game, she was sexually abused by four male avatars, according to a December Medium post.

“Within 60 seconds of joining” Horizon Worlds, Patel said she was “verbally and sexually harassed” by avatars “with male voices [that], essentially, but virtually gang raped” her avatar.

“[It was] a horrible experience that happened so fast and before I could even think about putting the safety barrier in place,” she wrote, referring to the company’s “Safe Zone” feature, which allows users to block other users.

“Virtual reality has essentially been designed so the mind and body can’t differentiate virtual/digital experiences from real [ones],” Patel said. “In some capacity, my physiological and psychological response was as though it happened in reality.”

[stock_market_widget type=”inline” template=”generic” assets=”META” markup=”{name} ({symbol}) is trading at {price} ({change_pct}).” display_currency_symbol=”true” api=”yf”]

The company’s stock plunged more than 20% after hours following its fourth quarter earnings report Wednesday.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates.png

Research

Pipe Network is a decentralized content delivery network (dCDN) that replaces the sparse, capital intensive data center footprint of traditional CDNs with a permissionless mesh of independent node operators. By orchestrating under-utilized resources that already exist at the edge, rather than purchasing or leasing thousands of servers, Pipe slashes capital intensity while letting supply expand autonomously in the places where bandwidth is scarcest and most expensive.

article-image

ETH’s “breakout marks a significant structural shift and clears the path towards…$4,000,” Kraken’s OTC desk noted

article-image

Fiscal dominance isn’t about interest rates and it isn’t about Trump, either

article-image

Firestarter Storage brings decentralized storage and delivery to Solana

article-image

After lengthy closing arguments on Wednesday, the case is now in the hands of 12 jurors

article-image

Analysts cite weak trading volume and regulatory progress as factors

article-image

Builders weigh in on Ethereum’s first decade and the decisions that will define its next one