Meta looks to reinvent the v-chip.
Earlier today, Meta (formerly Facebook) announced a new suite of parental supervision tools that will offer parents and legal guardians greater control over their kids’ in-headset experience by allowing them to block certain content and monitor their activity across the platform. Rolling out over the next several months, these “platform-level controls” are designed for teens ages 13 and up and serve a variety of useful functions.
Beginning this April, parents will have the ability to block specific games and apps using the same “unlock pattern” used by players to prevent unwanted access to their headsets. This coming May, Meta will take in-headset security a step further by automatically blocking teens ages 13 and up from accessing age-inappropriate content on the Quest Store. The company will also be launching a suite of new parental supervision tools which can be controlled using a new Parental Dashboard available on the Oculus mobile app.
The parents as well as the teen need to agree to the experience in order to link their accounts. Once paired, parents will have access to the following controls (as provided by Meta):
- Approve the download or purchase of an app blocked by default based on its IARC-rating.
- Teens can send a “Ask to Buy” request, which automatically sends a notification to the parent.
- The parent can then approve or deny straight from the Oculus mobile app.
- Block inappropriate games and apps.
- Parents can also restrict access to web browsers.
- View every app and game in their teens library.
- Receive “Purchase Notifications,” alerting them of any purchase on the Quest Store.
- View total screen time from the Oculus mobile app.
- View their teen’s list of Oculus Friends.
- Block Link and Air Link, preventing access to specific PC VR content.
As previously stated, you can expect Meta’s new parental supervision controls to begin rolling out on Meta Quest headsets over the next couple of months. For more information on today’s announcement visit here.
Image Credit: Meta
