Introducing Meta Accounts and Meta Horizon Profiles for VR

Today, Mark Zuckerberg introduced Meta accounts: a new way for people to log into their VR headsets that doesn’t require a Facebook account. Starting in August 2022, if you’re new to Meta VR devices or have previously merged your Oculus account with your Facebook account, you’ll need to create a Meta account and Meta Horizon profile. If you’ve been logging into your VR device with your Oculus account, you can continue to do so until January 1, 2023, at which point you’ll need to create a Meta account and Meta Horizon profile to continue using your Meta VR device.

Your Meta account is not a social media profile; it lets you log into your VR devices and view and manage your purchased apps in one place. In the future, we’ll extend Meta account functionality so you can use it to log into other Meta devices.

You can also add your Meta account to the same Accounts Center as your Facebook or Instagram account to unlock connected experiences across Meta technologies — like finding your Facebook friends to play games with in VR or chatting with friends on Messenger. And if you don’t want to use your Facebook or Instagram account in VR, you don’t have to.

Meta Horizon Profile

After you finish creating a Meta account, you’ll be prompted to create a Meta Horizon profile. Your Meta Horizon profile is your social profile in VR and other surfaces, like from a web browser. You can customize how you appear to others — as a gamer or as your buttoned-up 9-to-5 persona. You can choose your Meta Horizon profile username that’s unique to you (e.g. WarriorMama365), the profile name that will be displayed to others while you’re in VR (e.g. Monique Smith), your profile photo, avatar and more. You can create one Meta Horizon profile per Meta account.

Your Oculus friends will become your followers, similar to how it works on Instagram. This update provides more ways to be social and connect with others. You can choose whether to share your active status and activity updates, like the apps you own and your achievements, with your followers. If you already own a Meta VR headset, your Oculus friends will automatically become your followers and you’ll follow them back by default. You can choose to unfollow anyone or remove followers at any time.

Privacy Controls

We want to let you control who you interact with in VR and build your own community. As part of this update, you’ll now find a menu with three privacy options to help guide you through which privacy settings are the best fit for you: Open to Everyone, Friends and Family, and Solo. After you make your selection, you’ll have the opportunity to review and confirm your individual privacy settings are set the way you want them. You can change these settings at any time. 

As part of these privacy settings, you have the option to set your Meta Horizon profile to private, which means you’ll be asked to review and approve follower requests. If you choose this option, only your followers can see who you follow and who follows you. Keep in mind that people who don’t follow you will still be able to view your profile picture, avatar, username, display name, follower count and the number of people you follow. People can also still search for your name or username and send you follow requests.

People between the ages of 13 and 17 will have their Meta Horizon profiles set to private by default.

Learn more about Meta accounts and Meta Horizon profiles.

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