Major flaw with new accounts for minors

[mthr.ov.motivation]

I bought the original Oculus Quest for my children in 2020. My son, who was 10 at the time, fell in love with VR gaming. My youngest daughter coveted the Quest, but she was too young to handle it responsibly, so she was not permitted to use it.

In 2022, she had matured substantially, so I bought her the new Quest 2. I did not realize at the time that, since being purchased by Meta, there was now a requirement that the user have a Meta account. In order for her to use the device I’d just purchased, I had to make a decision between linking it to MY Facebook account, or creating a Meta login for her.

It was obviously much more safe for me to create an account for her, despite her being under the age of 13, since linking her device to my Facebook account would give strangers access to her. This way, I could safeguard her login information, so that she could not actually access Facebook or Instagram, which would be a huge security risk. So yes, I lied about her age. 

We had very few problems with her use of the Quest. The parental controls were disappointingly lackluster, even had she been between the ages of 13-18, but I made up where they were lacking through old-fashioned parenting— I talked to her about internet safety and physically took the device when needed.

When I heard that Meta was rolling out new rules allowing youth aged 10-13 and creating greater parental controls such as time limits and schedules, I was delighted. This week, I finally got around to doing what I thought was the right thing: Logging into her account and changing her birthdate. 

Unfortunately, the moment I made the change, her account was suspended. The only way to contest the suspension is to provide government issued photo ID. Whether she is 13 or 10, this demand is a bit of a reach. Sure, some minors have passports or state IDs, but it’s the exception, not the rule.

Even if she did have a photo ID, it seems that I’m being asked to prove that she is 13, to reinstate the original account. What I am trying to do is come clean and convert this account into a proper youth account, so that I can have the control over it which I intended to have in the first place.

I’m stuck. I’m irate, and my child is sorely disappointed. Yes, I could create a new youth account, only one major problem— all of the software which I purchased was connected to HER account, even though MY parent account was paired to hers from the beginning.

I am sharing my complete, honest story because I want a resolution from Meta, and because I am positive I’m not the only one who has made this series of mistakes.

[kojack · Accepted solution]

The new 10-13 accounts haven't actually been released yet, they are coming later this year (I would guess at Connect 2023 later this month), so that's probably why changing the birthday suspended the account. I tried to make one last week as a test and it wouldn't let me.

I'm not sure if support can do much in this situation right now, since it would involve violating the terms of service. But I assume they would be able to unsuspend the account once the 10-13 accounts are available.

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@mthr.ov.motivation wrote:

I did not realize at the time that, since being purchased by Meta, there was now a requirement that the user have a Meta account.

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Meta purchased Oculus in 2014. The only thing that happened recently is that they had renamed the company from Facebook to Meta, its still the same company that made the first Quest.

The Quest used an Oculus account. When the Quest 2 first came out it required a Facebook account. This was so unpopular that they had to drop that requirement and created the Meta account as an alternative. A Meta account is basically a new version of the old Oculus account, it isn't tied to a social network and has less restrictions (Facebook accounts have a one account per person rule, Meta accounts don't).

So making a new Meta account (with an accepted age, but you didn't hear me say that) for your daughter would be fine (no banning like if you make a second Facebook account). But as you say, any games on the previous account are lost until the new 10-13 accounts become available. It would at least let her resume using the device for now.

There's an option on Quests called App Sharing. This lets you have a primary account (owned by you) used to set up the headset and own the games, then a secondary account (your daughter) logs in and has access to the games without owning them. It doesn't let you app share on two headsets at once, so you couldn't have both the Quest and Quest 2 using your account to app share.