Child Meta account can't add Parent/Trusted Meta account as friends.

[ShiroTenko]

Hi everyone! So I am making this thread to raise visibility for child Meta accounts not being able to add their parents or a trusted account as a friend and vice-versa.

If this situation does apply to you, please let me know of the following so I can get this info looked into.

• Which headset version are you currently running? You can check this in Quick Settings > Settings > Software Update > under the Current Version Details section. The formatting should be 60.#.#.###.###.######### or 62.#.#.###.###.#########.
  
• Are any of you currently enrolled in the PTC? If so, is it for the headset, PC app, or both?
  
• Can you let me know the mobile app version, along with the OS for the phone?
  
• Which headset are you using?
  
• Has anyone been able to add their child/parent as a friend from some workaround?
  
  

Also, if you guys see any other threads with this problem as their main topic, please feel free to link them in the replies; I'll want to look over them if possible.

[pb.336101]

I have just spent a couple of hours reading through this and several other threads in an attempt to find out how I prevent strangers from talking to my son on his meta Quest 2 headset. Kudos to @Fatony for starting several threads on the topic and for many excellent  and insightful posts. 
Unfortunately I see no response from Meta other than stock responses about the functionality available in their existing and inadequate parental controls. 

it seems there is no way to prevent strangers talking to my son while playing games on the headset, I would not allow complete strangers to talk to my son in the street so I am not going to allow it in my own home!
I’m therefore left with no choice but to stop him using the Meta Headset that he loves. 
I take responsibility for not researching thoroughly before purchasing the headset, and assuming that Meta Parental controls would actually allow parents to keep their children safe by preventing communication with people not pre approved by their parent (as is the case with Nintendo Switch). However I find Meta’s lack of response to the many concerned parents to be completely unacceptable on a topic as important as child safety.

[xYoBro]

just wanted to make sure to keep this thread alive; or, maybe someone can point me to a more updated thread.

I just bought a quest and set up my 10 year old with an account, and have the same issue/thoughts as everyone else on the subject — there should be a way for me to be added as a follower to his account, and manually approve other followers so he can play games with his brother and friends. 

@ShiroTenko if it would still make sense to provide all the info from your initial post, please just let me know but it seems like this is an issue outside the realm of which software version I am currently running (though I readily admit I dont have all the facts and could be wrong about that)

[ShiroTenko]

It doesn't hurt to do so, but I think I grabbed enough from this thread so far.

Even though I haven't heard any updates yet, I did noticed that Meta had changed some stuff to better enhance the Parent Managed accounts, so I'm hoping that a change to this system will happen also! 😊

[EnigmaCA]

Add my name to the pile of people with this same issue. I upgrade to a Q3 last week, so gave the Q2 to my 12 year old son. Today he said he wanted to play Chess Club with me. Awesome I said.. it's now 4 hours later frustratingly searching until I found this thread, that confirms there's no way to add him as a friend.. so we're screwed. Not happy.

[Akuena]

So I just learned that my childs 10-12 account is not allowed to have followers or to follow anyone despite his privacy settings saying otherwise. The Meta Chat told me that it's for safety reasons and while I agree with some of the other reasons for the 10-12 account being all private and all....I DO NOT agree with the fact that they "aren't allowed to have friends" .....not even from their own family members. I believe this should be changed or should at least reflect what the privacy setting says in the account itself. For my 10-12 year old to not be allowed to have friends for 2-3 years is very wrong and sad. I believe Meta needs to change this some how. My son lost all his friends when I changed his account yesterday.

PLEASE META, CHANGE THIS!!!!

[tyrant8499]

Hello,

Unfortunately, Meta’s restrictions for 10-12 year olds have made the VR experience very disappointing for parents and children. We certainly understand the need to protect children in social media and gaming, but Meta has given parents very little ability to decide what is appropriate for our children.

Since the Friends/People app is completely blocked for 10-12 year old children, they don’t have the ability to interact with friends they know. They can’t call, create parties or join their friends in their VR homes. It would be great if parents had the ability to allow friends they know personally. Otherwise, the hope is that the games still allow voice chat with teammates or in private lobbies. 

This has also become a challenge. Many games are following the restrictions that Meta has put in place for children 10-12 years of age. Games like Gorilla Tag no longer allow children to setup private lobbies, so they are limited to public. I am unable to setup a private lobby so my child and I can play in the same home with two headsets. Our only option is to keep trying public lobbies and hope they’re not full. This is the same for when he tries to play with his friends. Plus, there’s no option to voice chat any longer as all children in that age range can only make monkey sounds. In order to talk to a friend, he needs to have a phone near him.

Ghostbusters is even worse. He is completely blocked from joining any servers. So, he and I cannot play a private game or public game together. Though this game is rated teen, we feel it is certainly appropriate for him. I’ve allowed this app in supervision, but this doesn’t change his blocked access to the servers.

It’s a shame that some games and Meta restrictions are making it difficult for parents to play with their children. Again, we absolutely support protecting children from strangers, but we should also have the ability to allow them to connect and play with friends they personally know.

[Ohio2782k]

I agree and not only do I agree but I'm sick of people without children attempting to make policies about children that have siblings.

It is cruel and unusual punishment to require a parent with children that are just below a legal requirement age from picking up or being envious of an older sibling playing a children's game.

We all roll our eyes in understanding of the legal requirements and hoops companies have to jump through, but they seldom pass that stupidity on to parents for a reason.  It's just evil to require that parents explain legal reasons why they can't play with their friends just because some lawyer for an insurance company wants a specific legal cutoff of responsibility.

It's also specious and pedantic to argue that a bad ban was enforced due to an age restriction nobody listens to.  My daughter isn't going to understand that reason and TBH I find it cowardly.  It's basically like saying you abused your own system because you don't understand children and/or the difference between age of majority and legal wrangling.

[tyrant8499]

I would like to add that this is an issue with the game Bam, as well. My son and I tried to play and we could not find a way to setup a private game without using the friends list. Since he is 10, he does not have a friends list. As of now, we can’t find any way to play the game together either in a public or private lobby. Please advise if we’re missing something.

[ShiroTenko]

Hey @tyrant8499, I see you have an inquiry about Meta accounts and Parent-Managed accounts. I have been pushing for this functionality for awhile. I haven't received any news of this feature being implemented yet, but if any info comes to light, I'll be sure to update it on this thread here.

I hope this information was insightful!

[SnowbAngel]

This system is completely nuts. My husband and son were happily experiencing the delights of VR together and playing multiplayer games on a quest 3 and 2. I was happy that we were supervising app access and although he was playing a bit on his own, the fact he was playing with a family member meant we were able to jointly experience any situations etc. We then found out we had set up the wrong account for him as he needed the child account (10-12), so took us a little while to get his account unblocked and switched over. But now we find that he can no longer play games together with family members. So we have gone from what was a nicely supervised experience to him being thrust solo into games where it is much harder for us to monitor the interactions etc.

i spent ages searching thinking surely I must be missing some authorisation in my parental supervision account, to authorise identified trusted accounts, but so far I see this is not something that has been thought about. Honestly I feel the teen account we had previously was much healthier than what we currently have. Where is the joint fun, and learning together?

Please keep me updated if any developments do occur.