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When then-Facebook revealed in August 2020 that starting in October of that year, people using Oculus devices for the first time would be required to login with a Facebook account, it was not a popular decision. Meta reversed that decision Thursday.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post, “You won’t need a Facebook account to log into Quest starting next month. We’re rolling out new Meta Accounts that you can use with our virtual reality headsets instead. This will give everyone more choice about how you show up in the metaverse.”
Meta Accounts enable people to log into their VR devices and view and manage their purchased applications in one place, as well as giving them the choice of whether to incorporate Facebook and/or Instagram into their VR experiences.
The company explained in a blog post Thursday, “As we shared at Connect 2021, we’re moving from being Facebook-first to metaverse-first. As part of this shift, we’ve taken a step back to reflect on what account model would best support our work to help build the metaverse.”
Meta explained that while Meta Accounts enable people to log into their VR devices and view and managed their purchased apps, they are not social profiles, adding that users’ Oculus profiles are being converted to Meta Horizon profiles, which will represent their social presence in VR and other surfaces, such as the web.
Avatars, usernames and other information can be customized in Meta Horizon profiles.
While adding a Meta Account to the same Accounts Center as a person’s Facebook and/or Instagram account will enable connected experiences—such as inviting Instagram followers to play games in VR or chatting with Facebook friends on Messenger—it is not required.
Starting in August, people who are new to Meta VR devices or previously merged their Oculus and Facebook accounts must create a Meta Account and Meta Horizon profile, and this must be done by Jan. 1, 2023.
Information saved in Meta Accounts includes date of birth, email address, name, payment information and phone number, and people must be 13 (14 in South Korea and Spain) to create one. This information is not public, and multiple Meta Accounts can be created.
Meta is updating its supplemental privacy policy and supplemental terms of service to reflect the changes that were detailed Thursday, and the company is also revising its conduct in VR policy to better reflect the evolution of VR.
Another change coming to Meta Quest in August is the conversion of its current friends model to a followers structure, similar to how Instagram now works.
Meta explained in its blog post, “You can choose whether to share your active status and activity updates, like the apps you own and your achievements, with your followers. If you already own a Meta VR headset, your Oculus friends will automatically become your followers and you’ll follow them back by default. You can choose to unfollow anyone or remove followers at any time.”
Finally, new privacy controls were added to Meta Quest to let people better control who they interact with in VR as they build their own communities.
Users can choose between Open to Everyone, Friends and Family and Solo, and those settings can be changed at any time.
Meta Horizon profiles can also be set to private, meaning that people will be asked to approve follower requests, and only followers can see who a user follows and who follow the user.
Non-followers can still see a person’s avatar, display name, follower count, number of people followed, profile picture and username, and people can search for others’ names or usernames and send other people follow requests.
Meta Horizon profiles will be set to private by default for users 13 through 17.
