Horizon Worlds Exposed
Minors were routinely harassed and exposed to adult content in Meta's flagship VR social network.
Executive summary
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This CCDH report investigates safety conditions for minors on Meta's Horizon Worlds virtual-reality platform, which is officially restricted to users 18 and older. Researchers conducted 100 logged visits, drawn from the platform's "Top 100" worlds menu, recording footage of each session for up to five minutes and classifying users as minors based on stated age or researcher assessment of voice.
The investigation found minors present in 66 of the 100 recorded sessions, including in 5 of 19 visits to spaces explicitly restricted to adults. It documented 19 incidents of adults harassing minors, including 4 involving sexually explicit insults and 6 involving race-, gender-, or sexuality-based discrimination.
The roughly 20-page report, published in March 2023, concludes that Meta's stated age restrictions and safety measures were not effectively enforced in practice, leaving minors exposed to harassment and adult content despite the platform's 18+ policy, and raises concerns given Meta's subsequently announced plans to extend access to users aged 13-17.
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