Meta Chief Zuckerberg Faces Opposition From Democrat Senators Over Metaverse App Launch For Teenagers

Democratic senators Ed Markey (D., Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) urged Meta Platforms, Inc META CEO Mark Zuckerberg to halt the release of its Horizon Worlds metaverse app to teens ages 13 to 17.

"In light of your company's record of failure to protect children and teens and a growing body of evidence pointing to threats to young users in the metaverse, we urge you to halt this plan immediately," the Wall Street Journal reports citing the letter.

A spokesman for Meta said in June, Meta launched supervision tools for users of the company's Quest headsets that let parents approve, block and view the apps their teens use.

Meta's Quest virtual-reality headsets targeted people ages 13 and up who already spend time on the headset, a great experience with age-appropriate protections in place.

The senators noted a flaw in Messenger Kids that allowed users between the ages of 6 and 12 to bypass the app's age restrictions and interact with strangers. 

The senators highlighted Meta's failure to stop ads for tobacco, alcohol, and eating disorders from targeting teens.

The two senators also cited the company's internal research, which found that its Instagram service was toxic for some teen girls.

The senators also emphasized collecting data on face and eye movement, physiological damage such as nausea and eyestrain, and exposure to abusive behavior like bullying, threats of violence, and sexual content.

"Meta can't protect the young people on its platforms now, so Mark Zuckerberg has no right to pull more teens into the wild west of the metaverse," Sen. Markey said in a statement to the WSJ.

Meta splurged billions of dollars building out the metaverse. In 2022 alone, the company spent $15.9 billion on its Reality Labs division. Zuckerberg has said he views the metaverse as the next frontier for computing technology.

Meta set 500,000 monthly active users as the Horizon unit's goal for the first half of 2023, with one million as the goal for the full year. Horizon's monthly active users reached just above 200,000 as of January.

Price Action: META shares traded higher by 1% at $176.28 premarket on the last check Friday.