Child Advocates Rebuke 'Beyond Appalling' Facebook Push to Allow Kids in the Metaverse

On the heels of a study showing that minors who use Facebook's virtual reality platform known as the "Metaverse" have routinely been exposed to harassment and abuse, a coalition of more than 70 children's health experts and advocacy groups on Friday called on its parent company Meta to scrap plans to officially open up the digital world to children as young as 13.

A letter signed by groups including Fairplay and the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) warns that insufficient research has been done on the effects of spending time on platforms like Facebook's "Horizon Worlds"—but notes the research that has been done shows clear risks.

The platform is currently open to users aged 18 and up, but CCDH published a study in March after showing that out of 100 recorded visits to Horizon Worlds, minors were present in 66 of them. Facebook plans to permit 13-17 year olds to use the platform,

Since introducing the Metaverse last year, the company's stock price has dropped more than 70%, and Facebook has conducted two rounds of mass layoffs in the past six months, with more expected.

Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay, accused Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg of expanding the platform to children in order to boost the company.

"It's beyond appalling that Mark Zuckerberg wants to save his failing Horizons World platform by targeting teens," said Golin. "Already, children are being exposed to homophobia, racism, sexism, and other reprehensible content on Horizon Worlds."

CCDH's study identified 19 recordings in which minors were harassed by adult users, including "sexually explicit harassment, racist abuse, and misogyny."

A minor using a Black avatar was told, "You're Black, you're sentenced to death, get out of here" in a virtual courtroom in Horizon Worlds, and "minors were on the receiving end of sexually explicit insults" in at least four of the documented instances.

"Meta must wait for more peer-reviewed research on the potential risks of the Metaverse to be certain that children and teens would be safe," wrote the signatories, including former U.S. House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, now at the Council for Responsible Social Media, and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt.

In addition to being exposed to harassment and explicit content, the advocates warned in the letter, children's access to Horizons World "magnifie[s] risks to privacy through the collection of biomarkers."

"Before it considers opening its Horizon Worlds metaverse operation to teens, it should first commit to fully exploring the potential consequences," Center for Digital Democracy deputy director Katharina Kopp said of Facebook. "That includes engaging in an independent and research-based effort addressing the impact of virtual experiences on young people's mental and physical well-being, privacy, safety, and potential exposure to hate and other harmful content. It should also ensure that minors don't face forms of discrimination in the virtual world, which tends to perpetuate and exacerbate 'real life' inequities."

The company is planning to welcome minors into Horizons World a year-and-a-half after former Facebook data scientist Frances Haugen testified that the company's products "harm children."

In addition to raising other concerns about the social media platform, Haugen pointed to studies showing that 13.5% of teen girls in the United Kingdom felt that Instagram—which Meta owns—contributed to suicidal thoughts, and that 17% of teen girls said their eating disorders got worse after they began using Instagram.

"Should Meta throw open the doors of these worlds to minors rather than pause to protect them, you would, yet again, demonstrate your company to be untrustworthy when it comes to safeguarding young people's best interests," the coalition told Zuckerberg in their letter Friday.