Obviously given the history of moral panic around videogames, much attention has focused on whether there are negative effects rather than positive ones!

But the conclusion I draw is that we ultimately shouldn’t be worried about moral corruption through this process of imaginative contagion.

Yes, definitely. I’ve often found myself after playing some role-playing videogames thinking in a different, *better* way afterwards as the character would.

In the article, I argue that actually we often resist imaginatively adopting bad perspectives, and it’s easier to take on morally good ones.

Yes I think AI chatbot cases often involve this kind of contagion where the boundary between pretending it’s conscious and actually thinking it is becomes blurred.

Same is true of some conspiracy theories - you start out pretending/“just playing along” but over time this transitions to real belief.

Yes, I agree. Though this does also remind me a little of @katemanne.bsky.social’s argument in Down Girl about how we shouldn’t think of misogyny just as internal feelings of hate for women, which are impossible to verify, but in terms of actions that police and punish women.

Interesting! Look forward to reading this when out

@alfredarcher.bsky.social

@claremcglynn.bsky.social, also involved in the new laws on image-based sexual abuse, has shown how we might criminalise these actions within existing legislation, and/or introduce a new wider offence of *intimate intrusions* that captures new forms of tech-aided misogyny.

doi.org/10.1093/ojls...

A next area that warrants new legislation is the widespread sexual harassment/assault of women in virtual worlds.

My research and work in psychology shows how these experiences can be as distressing and traumatic as real events - but no legal protections exist.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...