Meta Lowers VR Age To 10, Making Everyone Think VR Must Be Dangerous

Meta recently announced they would lower the age to consume VR content from 13 to 10. The announcement had all the responsible guardrails you would expect. Children need their parent's permission. Only selected content deemed appropriate would be available. Etcetera. The problem is, the credibility of Meta is so low that immediately upon hearing the announcement many people tagged the motivation behind it as obviously profit-motivated and assumed VR must pose many dangers to young people that Meta isn't telling us about.

When you have low brand trust, this is exactly what you can expect. Skepticism. Denial. Assumption of negative intent. By and large the brand has earned this lowly reputation through its actions. It's a sad reality for the creators of VR content for young kids, though, which is probably excellent and could really be transformative for teaching children about the world. Until the technology finds a more credible sponsor, it will continue to struggle for acceptance. The messenger does matter.