Meta Welcomes Teens Into Its Horizon Worlds Prior to this, the Horizon Worlds was only catering to an audience of age 18 and above. The incoming audience will now be able to experience Meta's immersive nature and engage in popular games such as Arena Clash, Giant Mini Paddle Golf, American Idol VR, The Darkest Depths, and Pixel Plummet. Additionally, keeping audience safety as a priority, it has also included back-end protections and parental supervision tools.
By Paromita Gupta •
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On Tuesday, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, announced that it was opening its Horizon Worlds for teens aged between 13 and 17 in US and Canada. "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," read the official release of Meta.
Prior to this, the Horizon Worlds was only catering to an audience of age 18 and above. The incoming audience will now be able to experience Meta's immersive nature and engage in popular games such as Arena Clash, Giant Mini Paddle Golf, American Idol VR, The Darkest Depths, and Pixel Plummet. Additionally, keeping audience safety as a priority, it has also included back-end protections and parental supervision tools.
Back in February 2023, Gabriel Aul, Horizon's Vice-President, through an internal memo titled "Horizon 2023 Goals and Strategy", shared how the company was aiming to roll out Horizon Worlds to the age group 13-17, aligning it with Meta Quest's VR target audience.
Safety Protocols
In order to provide a safe, age-appropriate experience, Meta will let its teen audience have a default setting of not showing active status and Meta Horizon Worlds location to other users. Underage users will also have control over whom they follow and who is following them in the world. Meta will also provide age-friendly events users can explore, find and experience. "For example, mature world and event ratings prevent teens from finding, seeing, or entering spaces that contain mature content. Our policies prohibit teens from publishing mature worlds or events. Worlds violating this policy will be removed," the release read.
Horizon Worlds' voice mode will transform teen's voices into soft, tone-down, friendly versions and will emit a distorted sound for users they don't know. Users will have a garbled voice as a default setting for voice mode. Furthermore, the platform will prevent unknown adults from featuring in a user's 'people you may know' list.
Parental observation
Expanding its VR parental supervision tools to Horizon Worlds, Meta will have parents set up Worlds parental supervision by inviting their children through Family Center. Parents and guardians will be allowed to adjust safety features such as voice mode, see who follows their child and who their child follows, allow or block the teen from using apps, and see how much time they spent in the Meta Quest and Worlds for the past week.
"Additionally, everyone—including teens—can cast their experience from Meta Quest, allowing them to share what they're seeing in VR and Worlds with parents, guardians, or others around them," also read the release.
