![]() The Federal Trade Commission is “actively working” on hiring in-house psychologists to address concerns linking social media use to teen mental health harms, said Alvaro Bedoya, an FTC commissioner. ![]() Meta’s announcement Tuesday came as other US government officials said they were beefing up scrutiny of social media’s potential effects on mental health. We have to build experiences which are tailored to the unique vulnerabilities of teens.” “I hope no one is assuming there is any inclination on our part to simply open the floodgates,” Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, told CNN during a recent tech demonstration at the company’s Washington offices. Meta added that its safety controls were developed with input from parents and online safety experts. Meta said in its announcement that in opening up Horizon Worlds to teens, the company would provide protective guardrails, such as by using default settings to make teenage users’ profiles and activity less visible to other users and by applying content ratings to potentially mature virtual spaces. Those calls were echoed earlier this month by dozens of civil society groups who wrote in an open letter that Meta’s VR offerings could expose users to new privacy risks through the collection of biometric and other data new forms of unfair and deceptive marketing and abuse or bullying. “I’m calling on the company to reverse course and immediately abandon this policy change,” Markey added. “Meta has a record of abject failure to protect children and teens, and yet again, this company has chosen to put young users at risk so that it can make more money,” Markey said, accusing Meta of “inviting digital disaster.” Lawmakers have previously raised alarms about the impact of some of Meta’s other products, including Instagram, on younger users. Ed Markey, urged Zuckerberg to reconsider letting teens use the app. Richard Blumenthal, who last month, along with Massachusetts Democratic Sen. “Meta is despicably attempting to lure young teens to Horizon Worlds in an attempt to boost its failing platform,” said Connecticut Democratic Sen. But it immediately triggered criticism from lawmakers who had pleaded with the company to postpone its plan. Tuesday’s expansion reflects Meta’s attempt to capture early adopters in a key demographic. Last year alone, the company spent nearly $16 billion in its Reality Labs segment and warned investors not to expect profitability from that unit anytime soon. Zuckerberg has pushed to spend billions developing VR hardware and software, even as Meta has scaled back significantly in other parts of its business. In VR, there are no rules, so parents are making up their own ![]() Child wearing an Oculus Quest 2 VR head set.
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