"Do not pretend you did not love her," one person told Nina Jane Patel after sexually assaulting her. Unlike typical reports of serious attacks on women, the case in question did not occur in real life; took place in metaverse.

Metaverse, an acronym for "meta-universe", is a digital world where truth and the virtual world come together and allow people to move between different devices and communicate in a virtual environment. In practical terms, it refers to augmented and virtual reality products and services.

One of the test users of Facebook's new virtual universe, Patel claimed that as soon as she entered the program, she was raped by several men.

Meta, Facebook's parent company, said it is publishing a tool for people who use virtual reality social platforms to push the boundaries of personal space, as concerns about user safety and sexual harassment have grown.

"My experience of sexual harassment was, to say the least, shocking. Shocking because I was not used to being talked to in such derogatory ways, maybe in 1996, but certainly not in 2021," she wrote in a post in Medium in December.

Describing her experiences, she stated that within 60 seconds of entering Meta, she was verbally abused by men, gang-raped by other avatars, and photographed.

"They told me, 'Do not pretend you do not like it.' It was a surreal nightmare, "said Patel.

Stressing that virtual reality was created essentially over the inability of the mind and body to understand the difference between real and virtual experiences, Patel said: "In a sense, my physiological and psychological reaction was that it was as if it had happened in real life." .