Senators in the United States have urged Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to abandon plans to extend its metaverse services to teenagers.
As it tries to build its VR business, Meta may extend Horizon Worlds, its social virtual reality (VR) platform, to users aged 13 to 17.
Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Ed Markey (D-MA), according to TechCrunch, signed a letter to Zuckerberg pushing him to suspend Meta’s plans to open Horizon Worlds to teens.
“Any strategy to invite young users into a digital space rife with potential harms should not be driven by a goal to maximize profit,” the senators wrote.
“We call on you to immediately halt Meta’s plan to bring teen users onto Horizon Worlds,” they added.
Meta (previously Facebook) lost a stunning $13.7 billion in operating losses for Reality Labs in 2022, shattering the company’s AR-VR and Metaverse dreams.
Reality Labs revenue was $727 million in the fourth quarter, a 17% decrease due to decreased Quest 2 sales.
The software is presently available to users aged 18 and over, and the teen version might be released as soon as this month.
Internal documents indicated that the business was dealing with “glitchy technology, uninterested customers, and a lack of clarity about what it will take to succeed” over a year after Zuckerberg introduced his metaverse initiative.
