Written by: Katie Scott, business reporter Brainz Magazine
A group of 36 organisations and 37 individuals, including a former US congressman, have signed a letter urging Meta not to allow teenagers access to its Horizon Worlds.
Meta has made public plans to boost the number of users to the VR platform to at least one million by the end of this year. In a memo that was leaked to the Wall Street Journal in February, the internet giant revealed it is planning on opening access to the platform to users between the ages of 13 and 17. At the moment, users have to be 18 years old. The news reports stated that Meta was “...seeking to draw in more teen and young-adult users after working to improve the service’s design.” The Meta memo writer reportedly wrote that Meta is targeting these age groups as they “...are the generations that in many ways will be the true digital citizens of the metaverse and have grown up seamlessly interfacing with the technology and connecting with people remotely.”
The letter, which was published in the US, was spearheaded by children's digital safety nonprofit Fairplay, the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD) and the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). Addressing Meta’s founder and chief exec, Mark Zuckerberg, the letter states that “...what may be good for your bottom line may be incredibly harmful to young people.”
“Considering the well-documented negative impacts of 2D social media on young people, Meta must wait for more peer-reviewed research on the potential risks of the metaverse to be certain that children and teens would be safe in the immersive experience” of VR, the authors continue.
Meta spokesperson, Joe Osborne, responded to the letter stating: “Before we make Horizon Worlds available to teens, we will have additional protections and tools in place to help provide age-appropriate experiences for them,” adding: “Quest headsets are for people 13+ and we encourage parents and caretakers to use our parental supervision tools, including managing access to apps, to help ensure safe experiences.”
