Parents will soon be able to decide who their kids can chat with on Meta Quest
Parents will soon be able to approve who their kids can chat with in VR, make phone calls, or send and receive app invitations.
Kids between the ages of 10 and 12 who use a parent-managed Meta account (see context below) have not been able to chat with other VR users, make phone calls, or send and receive app invitations.
That is about to change: Meta has announced that parents will soon be able to decide with which contacts their children can do so.
Here’s how the parent-approved contacts for preteens will work:
- Only someone who your preteen follows or who follows your preteen is eligible to become an approved contact
- No one will become an approved contact unless a parent adds them. Parents can manage approved contacts by searching and adding them directly from the child’s Following and Followers lists
- A preteen can request a follower become an approved contact. Once the parent has added them as an approved contact, the preteen will be able to chat, call, and send or accept invites to a parent-approved multiplayer MR or VR experience
- If two preteens want to chat, call, and send or accept invites to a parent-approved experience, parents of both preteens need to add them as approved contacts
- If a parent would like to delete an approved contact, they can do so at any time
This parental supervision feature will be released later this year.
More information can be found in the Family Center and on the corresponding support page.
Meta Quest and Parental Supervision - An Overview
Meta first introduced parental control tools in 2022. In 2023, Meta lowered the minimum age for using Quest from 13 to 10, and introduced parent-managed Meta accounts for children between the ages of 10 and 12. Only parents can create parent-managed Meta accounts. Once set up, parents can control which VR applications their children can use and how long they can stay in VR. In addition, only age-appropriate content is recommended. For a few months now, it has been mandatory to specify the age in the Meta account to assign users to three types of Meta accounts: Preteens (10-12), Teens (13-17), and Adults (18+).
In the USA and Canada, Meta's metaverse platform Horizon Worlds is only available for the latter two account types, and only for adult accounts outside these countries. Horizon Worlds will launch in a number of new countries in the coming months.
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