VR Amends

This is the third and final part of my Virtual Reality in Action series. In VR Abides, I argued that the technology industry may have moved on to AI, but the virtual reality concept is so deeply embedded in human psychology, philosophy, and culture that efforts to realize it through technology will inevitably persist and resurge. In VR Disrupts, I suggested that when VR technology becomes mainstream, it will realize the metaphorical social and spatial vision of cyberspace, creating a place beyond our physical reality where anything is possible; that is what makes the technology unique and potentially disruptive. In this part, I want to highlight something often overlooked: VR’s potential to reshape the laws of the Internet.

VR technology’s ability to eliminate physical barriers in human interaction can reshape social systems and structures. It can influence identity, norms, and creative expression; challenge traditional ideas of ownership, value, and productivity; transform learning into experiential, interactive processes that go beyond classrooms; revolutionize professional training; and enable distributed collaboration in workplaces. A less obvious but equally significant potential effect of VR adoption is that the technology’s capacity to challenge the core assumptions of current cyberlaw can create an opportunity to amend problematic Internet legal norms that have developed alongside the Information Revolution.

---

In the classic 1865 Lewis Carroll novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the protagonist dreams of falling down a rabbit hole into an alternate reality. In Wonderland, the rules of the real world do not apply; Alice visits areas governed by anarchy, mock etiquette, and absurdist dictatorship. Much of cyberlaw, or the law of the Internet, is based on the assumption that the Internet is as separate from the real world as Wonderland—a realm with its own norms and practices, warranting its own laws. Consequently, many online behaviors today are subject to laws enacted specifically for the Internet within the past thirty years.

One example is unauthorized access laws. Until the 1990s, criminal trespass laws were used for cases of breaking into computers, just as they were for breaking into physical spaces. Then, specific criminal laws targeting computer hacking were enacted, making unauthorized access to computers a separate cybercrime. A second example is cyber-harassment and cyber-stalking legislation. These are relatively recent laws intended to distinguish between physical harassment and stalking, and their online counterparts. A third example is government surveillance, which is generally subject to stricter legal limits, controls, and oversight when conducted through physical means compared to online methods.

So, currently, similar actions can be governed by completely different laws when performed online and offline. This legal disparity is based on the fundamental assumption that the online environment is distinct from physical reality. In the 3rd decade of the 21st century, this assumption is already problematic. Human behavior happens on a technological continuum; often, there is no sharp distinction between online and offline actions. We move at ease between physical reality and the two-dimensional cyberspace. We carry cyberspace in our pockets, wear it, live with it in our homes. My smartwatch wakes me up in the morning; I check my email, get up, and read the news on my phone as I brush my teeth. Separating online activities from offline ones and applying different legal standards to them already seems unreasonable.

When VR technology becomes mainstream, cyberspace will include subjectively realistic three-dimensional environments built to mimic the physical environment. If it is already hard to clearly distinguish between cyberspace behavior and physical behavior, it will be impossible to do so when cyberspace creates the same subjective effect as physical reality.

Entering a private office without permission can be criminal trespass. Signing in to a server without permission constitutes a computer crime—unauthorized access. Is entering a restricted area in a VR environment without permission trespass or unauthorized access? What about harassment in a VR environment? Is it considered physical harassment or cyber-harassment? Is a meeting in a VR space subject to the stricter legal protections against government surveillance of physical spaces or to relatively lax government cybersurveillance laws?

---

These questions become more significant when we realize that some of these cyberspace-specific laws are flawed, ineffective, or problematic. The laws governing unauthorized access to computers are overly broad and vague, affecting the criminalization of minor Internet infractions and chilling digital freedoms; cyber-harassment and cyber-stalking legislation is poorly enforced and ineffective, turning cyberspace into a hostile environment for many people; and government cybersurveillance norms have seriously upset the balance between public security and individual privacy, putting society on the path to an Orwellian surveillance state.

Understanding that VR technology will inevitably become mainstream in the near future presents an opportunity to amend these laws or even return to the laws of the physical world.

Trespass is a clearly defined criminal behavior; unauthorized access to a computer is a conceptually abstract technological event. Criminal law is ill-suited to deal with abstract technological functionality. A trespass-based criminal law regime for VR environments and cyberspace in general would be more in line with criminal law’s natural function of prohibiting and deterring concrete, socially harmful behavior.

Traditional harassment and stalking are typically personal crimes, perpetrated within a community and in a specific location. These facts lend these crimes a social context. Cyber-stalking, cyber-harassment, and other cybercrimes, however, are characterized by a physical and conceptual distance between perpetrator and victim, as well as by the absence of a defined crime scene. This makes them difficult to enforce. VR environments provide some spatial and social context, diminishing the conceptual distance between perpetrators and victims.

Recognizing that cyberspace will soon include VR environments calls for stronger legal protections against government surveillance. This protection is usually extended to places where a reasonable expectation of privacy is recognized, an inherently spatial legal test. Because VR environments are spatial and VR users carry their legal expectations with them into these environments, they should retain their physical privacy rights when entering them.

Alice’s Wonderland is an alternate reality with its own rules. The reason for that is not that it is distinct and separate from physical reality. Wonderland is beyond the laws of the real world because it is populated by fantastic creatures and talking animals. VR technology creates human alternate realities that should be governed by the laws of the real world.

That concludes this short series about VR and its unique potential. These notes draw from my article Virtual Reality Exceptionalism, published in the Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law.

53 | 1 | Published: Apr. 8, 2026 | Updated: Apr. 8, 2026 | Topics: Culture, Future, VR | Follow