Meta opens virtual reality game Horizon Worlds to teens after pushback from safety advocates

by Rebecca Klar - 04/18/23 2:26 PM ET

FILE – A car passes Facebook’s new Meta logo on a sign at the company headquarters on Oct. 28, 2021, in Menlo Park, Calif. The latest folding smartphones, immersive metaverse experiences, AI-powered chatbot avatars and other eye-catching technology are set to wow visitors at the annual MWC wireless trade fair. The four-day show, also known as Mobile World Congress, kicks off Monday in a vast Barcelona conference center. It’s the world’s biggest and most influential meeting for the mobile tech industry. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar, File)

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, will open its virtual reality app Horizon Worlds to teens with protections in place to help keep minors safe, the company said Tuesday

The expansion of Horizon Worlds to users aged 13 to 17 by Meta comes after pushback from kids’ online safety advocates and a two Senate Democrats over plans to let teens on the metaverse app.

Hit the brakes: Senate Democrats urge Meta to halt plans to open metaverse app to teens

“Teens have already become fans of popular virtual experiences across the industry—this makes it crucial that we build age-appropriate, safe, and positive experiences for them in VR,” the company said in the announcement.

Horizon Worlds is a virtual reality platform that allows users to interact with each other in different virtual reality “worlds” to play games and attend virtual social events, as well as create new worlds.

Meta said all teens’ profiles will be automatically set to private so they can approve or decline requests to follow them.

The application will also not show a teens’ active status on Meta Horizon Worlds location to other users unless the teen chooses whether their connections can see if they are active online. They can also control if connections can see which public world or event they are in.

The application will garble teens’ voices by default so others that do not know them can not hear them, the company said. The application will also not display adults a teen doesn’t know in their “people you might know” list in an effort to limit interactions between adults and teens.

Meta is also expanding its VR parental supervision tools to include Meta Horizon Worlds.

The application will be open to teens in the U.S. and Canada in the “coming weeks,” according to the announcement.

Meta’s update comes just one week after a group of advocacy organizations sent a letter to the company urging them to halt the plans over concerns it poses safety risks, including exposing children to sexually explicit insults and other offensive content or harassment.

Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) sent a letter to Meta last month also urging the company to halt plans to open the application to teens.

“In light of your company’s record of failure to protect children and teens and a growing body of evidence pointing to threats to young users in the metaverse, we urge you to halt this plan immediately,” they said.