Democratic Senators Urge Meta to Halt Launch of Metaverse App to Teens

Democratic Senators Urge Meta to Halt Launch of Metaverse App to Teens

Democratic Senators have urged the social network company Meta to halt the launch of Horizon Worlds, its flagship metaverse app, to teens. Democratic senators Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal have sent a letter to the company, citing concerns about the interactions of teens in Meta’s virtual worlds.

Opposition to Metaverse Adoption Plans for Teens

Two Democratic senators have sent a letter urging Meta to stop its reported plan to open its metaverse world to teens. Ed Markey and Richard Blumenthal, Democratic senators from Massachusetts and Connecticut, disapprove of the idea of opening Horizon Worlds, the flagship metaverse app of Meta, to teens 13 and older, citing various factors that might endanger their interactions in the virtual world.

The letter differentiates between standard virtual reality experiences and Horizon Worlds, explaining that "the cumulative set of immersive virtual reality experiences a teenager would confront on the socially driven Horizon Worlds are different from their use of a virtual reality headset to play a specific single-player game. Inviting young teens to the virtual environment, therefore, poses serious risks."

Markey and Blumenthal call for halting the plan to protect the health of young users and their privacy in the metaverse, recalling the company’s previous blunders involving the demographic band.

The Teen Adoption Push by Meta

The Wall Street Journal first reported including teens in its metaverse by Meta on February 7. According to an internal memo obtained by the publication, the new company strategy plans to open the Horizon Worlds experience to teens aged 13 and above. This marked a clear deviation from the current policies of the app, which only allows users over 18 to visit the virtual world.

Meta’s memo reinforces the need to push the services to young users to keep growing reported WSJ. Horizon Worlds Vice President Gabriel Aul reportedly stated:

"Today, our competitors are doing a much better job meeting the unique needs of these cohorts. For Horizon to succeed, we need to ensure that we serve this cohort first and foremost."

While Horizon Worlds experienced rapid growth in its initial stages, the app has been disapproved by users for bugginess, even by employees of Meta. In October, Metaverse Vice President Vishal Shah acknowledged that the issues present in the app hampered the experience of its users, and even employees of the company were not happy spending much time there.

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