• by Colin Kirkland , August 25, 2022

This week, Meta officially rolled out Meta accounts and Meta Horizon Profiles, two account types that will replace traditional personal social media account logins used to access the company's virtual reality (VR) platform.

Now, users of Meta's VR devices, like the Quest 2 headset, will need to sign up for a Meta account to log in to the metaverse. The change comes in response to complaints surrounding privacy concerns and the annoyance of using a personal social media account to play VR games.

For now, Meta is still letting users use Facebook and Instagram accounts to create their Meta account; all accounts will be connected in the Accounts Center, a place where users can find people to connect with across all of Meta’s apps.

However, those using an Oculus login will need to update to a Meta account by the start of 2023.

Once users have created a Meta account, they will be ushered toward setting up their Meta Horizon profile, which will replace their previous Oculus account, taking over everything avatar-based.

“Friends” –– the term once used by the company to describe metaverse friends –– will now be called “Followers.”

As privacy becomes more of an issue for the company, users will then be given several privacy options to pick from: Open to Everyone; Friends and Family; and Solo. If one chooses to skip the privacy setup, “Friends and Family” will become their default setting. From there they can choose for their account to be “private” or not.

Minors between the ages of 13 and 17 will have their accounts set to private by default.

After this, users will be asked to create their avatar and “embark on a VR adventure.”

Meta says this update will roll out globally on a gradual basis.