Research into the metaverse has revealed that the digital world is swirling with gang rape, child grooming, and graphic content.

DailyMail.com has witnessed such acts firsthand after spending time in Meta's Horizon Worlds, discovering that it is becoming a haven for people to carry out sexual violence under the guise of their avatar.

We were welcomed into the digital world by a male avatar who approached a woman in a bustling city square, who then started making crude sex noises and hitting her with an umbrella.

The female avatar tried to escape, but the obscene growls increased in volume as she screamed, “Stop it!”

These attacks are carried out by ordinary users, who “hide behind” the anonymity of their avatars, and the number of cases is increasing, says Bernard Marr, technology expert and author of The Future Internet, speaking to Daily Mail.com.

Marr said the lack of laws to punish people for harassment and assault leads people in the metaverse to commit acts they “wouldn't dare in real life.”

“The alarming increase in virtual attacks in the metaverse can be attributed to the lack of specific laws governing these spaces,” he told DailyMail.com.

“Unlike the tangible world, the metaverse currently operates in a legal gray area, where traditional laws about physical interaction do not necessarily apply or are difficult to enforce.

“The lack of specific laws for the metaverse encourages users to take actions they wouldn't dare in real life, taking advantage of the anonymity and immersive nature of the space.”

During DailyMail.com's investigation, we saw avatars running and jumping around as the female fell victim to her male aggressor – not a single avatar acknowledged the situation.

The incident didn't take place in one of Horizon's rooms dedicated to sex and drugs, but in a beginner's world for people new to the game.

Horizon Worlds is designed like a sun-drenched fantasy city, but the energy is like an internet chat room: chaotic and impersonal.

Attacks and harassment are widespread, with the Center for Digital Hate recently finding that harassment of minors by adults is “not uncommon” in Mark Zuckerberg's Horizon Worlds.

The report noted that adult avatars have ejaculated on young girls in the metaverse and threatened to perform sexual acts on users under the age of 15.

Researchers identified 100 potential violations of Meta's policies for VR in 11 hours and 30 minutes of user behavior recordings in the Horizon Worlds app.

Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, said: “When Facebook launched the Metaverse for Oculus, just in time for the holiday shopping season, the CEO promised that privacy and security are at the heart of Virtual Reality.

“But our researchers found that, contrary to its promises, Metaverse is a haven for hate, pornography and child grooming.”

Last month, police investigated the case of a young British girl who was attacked by a gang of young men in virtual reality.

Rapes have also been reported on other “metaverse” platforms such as Roblox, which is used by millions of children.

In June 2018, Amber Petersen's seven-year-old daughter was “violently raped” by two avatars who grabbed her and forced the avatar to participate in simulated sexual acts.

SumOfUs, a non-profit organization, released a report in May 2022 on the problems of hate speech and sexual assault in Horizon Worlds.

The organization's 21-year-old researcher was attacked within an hour of using the platform.

The unnamed researcher said: 'It happened so quickly that I kind of distanced myself from it. Part of my brain was thinking, what's going on, the other part was saying, this isn't a real body, and another part was saying, this is important research.'

Spaces like Horizon Worlds also have areas dedicated to sex and drugs – and minors can access them, according to the Center for Digital Hate.

In Roblox, adults create “condo” rooms for sex games, sharing videos of avatars having sex on porn sites.

Roblox itself bans 'condo' games and cracks down on them when they appear.

A Meta spokesperson emphasized that the researcher had not enabled the Personal Boundary feature – a safety tool that is enabled by default and prevents non-friends from coming within three feet of your avatar.

Meta points out that there are numerous privacy tools built into the Horizon Worlds platform, including options to disable other players' voices.

A spokesperson for Meta said: ''The type of behavior described does not fit our platform. That's why we have an automatic protection for all Meta Horizon Worlds users, the so-called personal boundary, which keeps people you don't know at a few meters distance. You.

“We want everyone who uses our services to have a good experience and easily find the tools that can help prevent these types of situations so we can investigate and take action.”

Attackers in the metaverse feel a “disconnect” between their actions and consequences, Marr says, but the psychological impact on victims can be “profound.”

“The perpetrators of these virtual attacks are often regular users of the metaverse, hiding behind the anonymity and freedom that digital space offers,” Marr said.

This anonymity can lead to a disconnect between actions and consequences, allowing individuals to engage in behavior that is socially unacceptable or criminal in the real world.

“The psychological impact on victims is profound, highlighting the need for accountability in these virtual realms.”

Marr also noted that lawmakers need to address this issue, as do metaverse platforms.

“Addressing these issues in the metaverse is of paramount importance. As technology advances, virtual experiences will become more immersive and indistinguishable from reality,” he continued.

'The psychological effects of virtual attacks, as evidenced by recent incidents, are real and harmful.

'New laws must recognize that virtual actions can cause real psychological damage. This challenges lawmakers to redefine violence in the context of increasingly tangible virtual experiences.

'Lawmakers face the complex task of crafting legislation that addresses physical violence in a non-physical space.

'This requires a paradigm shift in legal thinking, recognizing that psychological harm in the virtual world can be just as impactful as physical harm in the real world.

'Laws must evolve to account for the unique nature of virtual interactions, especially as technology such as haptic suits makes these experiences more physically tangible.

'International cooperation and a multidisciplinary approach are crucial in shaping these new legal frameworks.'

A Ukrainian sniper claims to be a world record holder after picking off a Russian soldier from 3.76 kilometers away with a special rifle called ‘Lord of the Horizon’.

The unnamed sniper, who serves in the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU), has reportedly managed to beat the previous record of 3.5 kilometers, set by a Canadian special operations sniper in Iraq in 2017.

Video reportedly shows the Russian target falling seconds after the SBU sniper took the shot.

A line of three stationary Russian soldiers quickly becomes a line of two as the bullet takes out the soldier at the currently unknown location.

The SBU said: ‘SBU snipers are rewriting the rules of global sniping and demonstrating unparalleled capabilities to operate effectively at remarkable ranges.’

The Ukrainian military did not provide any other details about the incident, such as when or where it was filmed, or say how it had confirmed the deployment of their sniper.

‘Lord of the Horizon’ was developed and created by MAYAK, a Ukrainian weapons manufacturer, and measures a whopping 6 feet tall, the Firearms Blog reports.

With the right ammunition, the gun can fire bullets at a speed nearly 10,000 feet faster than the speed of sound.

The shot comes after another Ukrainian sniper claimed to have carried out the second-longest combat killing in history in 2022.

The unnamed sniper killed a Russian soldier at a range of 2,710 meters (about 2.7 miles) according to the Ukrainian military, which last year published footage of the shot looking through the sniper’s crosshairs.

Footage of their killing released by Ukrainian forces last year showed a man moving among trees before the gunman centered the crosshair on his chest.

The thermal sight was seen popping up, indicating the gun had fired, before the figure fell to the ground about three seconds later.

A second figure then came running towards the first in an apparent attempt to help his wounded comrade, before the sniper fired a second time.

Both figures then collapsed to the ground.

The Ukrainian sniper has apparently taken the record from British sniper Craig Harrison, who killed two Taliban fighters from a range of 2,475 meters in Helmand Province, Afghanistan in 2009.

The Afghan National Police confirmed that he had killed two Taliban fighters when they visited the scene of the shooting shortly afterwards to try to recover the militants’ weapons.

An Apache helicopter equipped with a laser rangefinder was then sent over Corporal Harrison’s firing position to measure the distance between the two points.

Harrison later said that he took the photo with an L115A3 long-range rifle and that the conditions at the time were “perfect”: no wind, mild weather and good visibility.

In the case of the record-breaking Canadian shot, it is believed to have been captured on film by a Predator drone that was circling overhead at the time.

The Canadian military said the shot was taken by a McMillan TAC-50 sniper rifle, fired from the upper floors of a high-rise building.

According to a report by news site SOFREP, the killing took place in Mosul and the gunman and his team had recently trained in long-range sniping.

They had been shooting over the city at increasing ranges for several days prior to the record-breaking killing.

A second shot from the same sniper at a slightly closer range, just after the first missed its target, the site reported.

A separate record is held by another British sniper who killed six Taliban with a single bullet after it hit the trigger switch of a suicide vest he was wearing.

Lance Corporal, 20, of the Coldstream Guards, scored a stunning shot in Kakaran, southern Afghanistan, in December 2013.

His shot traveled a distance of 850 meters to reach its target, but the same gunman had previously taken out a Taliban fighter at 1,340 meters.

Confirming military killings is a notoriously difficult matter that relies largely on self-reporting by soldiers due to the difficulty of obtaining information from behind enemy lines during a conflict.

Over-reporting of casualties is therefore common and has plagued military tacticians throughout history.

Ukrainian snipers are often deployed as a vanguard for planned counter-offensive maneuvers and are tasked with eliminating high-value Russian targets before other forces can enter.

The commander of the already legendary Ghosts of Bakhmut revealed that his unit’s snipers often have to wait in one position for up to 16 hours a day.

“It’s nothing like American films that romanticize the work of snipers and show it as very glamorous.”

The commander, Ghost, who claims to have killed at least 113 Russian targets, said most of the unit’s work is based on survival.

‘You learn to count, you do math. You learn to camouflage yourself, you learn about the environment. You can shoot well, but if you can’t survive, it’s of no value.’

‘We work 24 hours a day, we make no distinction between day and night. There are no weekends. You’re completely exhausted, all your juices have been squeezed out of you, and when you come back from a mission, you’re a complete mess.”

Novo Nordisk, the company that produces Wegovy and Ozempic, funded both studies.

“I suspect there are a lot of people who don’t use these treatments because they require an injection,” said Dr. Robert Gabbay, the chief scientific and medical officer of the American Diabetes Association. “If you could say, ‘Well, not really,’ that’s great.”

The higher the dose of oral semaglutide, the more side effects it seems to come with. In the trial of overweight or obese people, 80 percent of those taking oral semaglutide reported gastrointestinal problems such as vomiting, nausea, constipation or diarrhea. Nearly 13 percent said they experienced an “altered sensation of the skin,” such as tingling. The majority of the study participants were white and female, the authors noted, meaning the results may not apply to the broader population of obese people.

The second trial, in people with diabetes, showed similar side effects: 80 percent of those taking the 50-milligram dose reported side effects, mostly gastrointestinal problems, that were more common in people taking the higher doses than those taking 14 milligrams. Thirteen percent of the people who received the 50-milligram dose stopped taking the medication because of the side effects. Injectable semaglutide causes similar side effects; in a previous study74.2 percent of participants who received 2.4 milligrams of injectable semaglutide (the amount contained in Wegovy) weekly experienced gastrointestinal distress.

Another trial presented at the conference and published Friday the New England Journal of Medicine looked at another oral compound, orforglipron, which is in the same class of drugs as semaglutide. The study was funded by Eli Lilly. Pfizer also tested its own pill in that drug class.

Oral semaglutide isn’t new: There’s already a tablet form of the compound on the market, sold under the name Rybelsus. The Food and Drug Administration has only approved that drug for adults with type 2 diabetes, and the tablets are available in relatively smaller daily doses, up to 14 milligrams. The tablets work similarly to semaglutide injections, which regulate insulin, lower blood sugar and slow stomach emptying, helping people feel fuller longer, said Dr. Andrew Kraftson, a clinical associate professor at Michigan Medicine.

For example, there is Milan, the most contemporary city we have in this country, but where there is no specific tradition for winter sports. But it’s Milan. And then of course we go to Cortina, with its history and its experience in alpine skiing. They have a very strong tradition in curling. They have an incredible history in bobsledding and the sliding sports. Then we go to Anterselva: that is one of the best, best recognized venues for biathlon in the world. Then we have Val di Fiemme, where Nordic sports are a very old tradition. Different editions of world championships. So the infrastructure is already there. Yes, we need to modernize. But it’s already there, so we don’t have to build.

Most of the competition venues already exist, which saves both budget and time. But how do you connect all these things?

It is important that we understand that there is a new system. Because if this concept works, it means more opportunities for other countries to host the Games. So transport, for example: we will do intra-cluster transport, and then we will recommend the use of public transport between clusters as much as possible.

We’re trying to rationalize the whole system for these Games, and hopefully leave it as a legacy for future potential organizing committees or candidate cities, so that they can conceive the Games in a wider area, to involve a larger portion of the population to use existing infrastructure.

Is it because the IOC can’t ask cities or countries to spend $50 billion like Russia did for the Sochi Games? Because nobody wants to host?

The risk is that no one will do the Games in Europe anymore. The Winter Games. The Summer Games is a different story. And Europe is, after all, the heart of winter sports. I mean, with all due respect to everyone, it was born here and the Alps are the Alps.

The Games should go everywhere, and to as many countries as possible. But if we don’t find another system, it will be extremely difficult in Europe. Because, I mean, this country is still a G7 country, and if you can’t afford the Games, who can afford to host the Games?