In my childhood, they'd kvetch about DOOM and CoD teaching kids to kill, which we all knew even at the time was retarded, but VRC is legitimately teaching children to pose like prostitutes in real life with their real bodies.
It's because in CoD and DOOM you are obviously killing people, but it's in a game and not real and your average 10 year old knows that killing people is bad.
With VRchat, hovewer, it's more of a "digital abstraction of reality" than a game. Sure, you can say that about online multiplayers like war thunder and call of duty, HOWEVER, those are games that, while multiplayer, do NOT emphasize social interaction or even facilitate it to a significant degree beyond basic team chat and voice chat and that's it. So, they are not a "digital abstraction of IRL socializing" because digital socializing isn't their purpose. Their purpose is for entertainment, and their core gameplay revolves primarily around the basic concept of the game (E.G. CoD for example is a shooter, and that's what it's gameplay revolves around, same with GTA Online, except with a bit more social aspect, hovewer, it's not designed with socializing in mind, you can ignore that and do your own thing, or garry's mod, where you can just completely ignore the multiplayer functionality)
Unlike the above examples, tough VRchat, was made with the express purpose to facilitate online social interaction, as i said: A abstraction of reality. Going to a VR chat bar is eerily similar to going to a IRL bar in terms of general experience (minus the actual drinking and eating parts, but, let's be honest, this isn't the main purpose of a bar anyway) So, the core functionality of socializing remains much the same, even tough it doesn't actually happen IRL. But it does happen, and does affect kids the same way.
Also, as you may know by now, kids are VERY gullible, sure, they've got a basic moral compass that killing is bad, but when it comes to the entire "VRchat grooming/teaching kids how to pose" they don't know that they are being groomed and taught to pose with their bodies like that, they don't know what they are actually even doing. They are thinking "Oh, it's just an online game, it can't affect me" Yes, yes it can, and it does. Pedophiles and groomers know that. They know how to abuse children's psychologies, and manipulate them. Pedophiles and groomers, are very well versed in kid's psychologies and how to manipulate them. Why? Because it's easy, you don't have to be a psychologist to know that it's very, very, VERY easy to manipulate a kid into doing x, y and z. ESPECIALLY when you threaten/blackmail EVEN if said theats/blackmail are empty.
Hencewhy VRchat poses the same risks to kids, as any other social media platform, because, once you look at it's actual "core", it boils down to this. A social media platform, with private chat functionality, I.E. no different than discord, for example. The core components are here.
I mean, we've got discord servers, in VRchats those are rooms.
Private group chats? In VRchat those are called private rooms
The ability to customize your profile? In vrchat it's the ability to have different "skins" on your character.
Then we've also got voice and text chats in both that are fairly equivalent aswell.
(Granted, there are a few major differences, but that's due to their design. The core elements are there in their full capacity)
Henchewhy discord can be easily compared to vrchat, once you remove the entire "3D game" part of it. The same threats and dangers to kids are present in discord, the same way they are present here. Why? It's the same thing. Same concept, just dressed up in 3D with VR support. Except it's now even easier given that VRchat, apart from having little to no moderation also actively markets itself to minors.
I hope i explained my point well, im shit at explaining my points, but basically im comparing VRchat to Discord, and why i think it presents the same danger to minors as does discord. You are free to disagree/argue against this tough, since im most likely wrong on some points, so do feel free to correct me, if you feel like it
