Nothing profound here, just need to vent: I haven’t used Facebook for several years now, but I just got my 10 year old son a Meta Quest 2 and had to activate it by linking to my Facebook account. Just two days later I got a warning that the account will be locked because they detected that a child was using the Quest with an adult account (maybe because of the types of games he was playing?). My options are to either make him his own, restricted account (requires a credit card for verification) or prove that I am in-fact an adult (requires photo ID). No fucking way is Facebook getting either my credit card or photo ID. This is some sorry attempt to extort even more personal info from people. I can’t understand how so many people tolerate this. How is this company still in business, let alone worth half a trillion dollars? If I had known how bad things have gotten, I would never have bought their VR.
These days you really better pay attention what you’re buying and what kind of ecosystem you’re buying into.
I get why they check if it’s children with accounts they’re not supposed to have… I once saw a documentary about VR. And there are lots of adults enjoying adult content. Mingling in virtual bars and clubs and doing adult stuff. I’m not sure if VRChat etc are available on the Meta devices… But it’s not great that children are in those virtual areas. Not for them and not for the other people who want to do their thing. So I get why they’re cracking down on this and forcing people to use the correct account.
However, requiring phone numbers, ID and credit cards is ridiculous. And lots of services do it. Google also restricted my account (for claimed suspicious activity) and now they want my ID. And I refuse to provide it.
Vrchat is available on quest headsets but they have their own independent policies and account, so it should not really be meta’s problem here.