{"id":56136,"date":"2025-09-10T23:20:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T23:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/56136\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T23:20:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T23:20:08","slug":"meta-whistleblowers-sound-the-alarm-on-vr-headsets-zuckerbergs-pet-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/56136\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta whistleblowers sound the alarm on VR headsets, Zuckerberg\u2019s pet project"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Three years ago, I wrote this piece<\/a> about Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s quest to dominate the virtual reality industry.<\/p>\n

His desire to corner the market on VR headgear had been abundantly clear before then \u2014 after all, the name change from Facebook to Meta was a nod to the company\u2019s intent to focus on building products for the \u201cmetaverse,\u201d where virtual reality activities are hosted. And although Meta\u2019s VR efforts have struggled at times over the years<\/a>, the company\u2019s push to be top dog has been obvious<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, it was stunning to hear Tuesday\u2019s testimony by two Meta whistleblowers before a Senate subcommittee. The two former Meta researchers, Jason Sattizahn and Cayce Savage, allege that some of the company\u2019s executives blocked them from thoroughly researching the impact of Meta\u2019s VR headset on children as it pursued its goals.<\/p>\n

NBC News reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cMeta is aware that children are being harmed in VR,\u201d Savage testified at the hearing.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u201cI quickly became aware,\u201d she said, \u201cthat it is not uncommon for children in VR to experience bullying, sexual assault, to be solicited for nude photographs and sexual acts by pedophiles, and to be regularly exposed to mature content like gambling and violence, and to participate in adult experiences like strip clubs and watching pornography with strangers.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Savage, who said she left Meta in 2023, said she was stymied when she wanted to find out how common the problems were.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

\u201cI wish I could tell you the percentage of children in VR experiencing these harms, but Meta would not allow me to conduct this research,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Yikes. Not exactly a shining portrayal of Meta\u2019s approach to protecting America\u2019s children \u2014 or children anywhere, for that matter. <\/p>\n

Sattizahn\u2019s experience sounded equally disturbing:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cMeta\u2019s immediate response to congressional concern was not to do the right thing but rather roll out new processes and policies to manipulate control and erase data,\u201d he said. \u201cWe researchers were directed how to write reports to limit risk to Meta. Internal work groups were locked down, making it nearly impossible to share data and coordinate between teams to keep users safe.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

He told the senators that when his team \u201cuncovered that underage children using Meta VR in Germany were subject to demands for sex acts, nude photos and other acts that no child should ever be exposed to, Meta demanded that we erase any evidence of such dangers that we saw.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone called the allegations \u201cnonsense\u201d and said they were \u201cbased on selectively leaked internal documents that were picked specifically to craft a false narrative.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent years, reports have raised concerns about minors being preyed upon by users of Meta\u2019s VR technology<\/a>, and the company has often responded<\/a> by touting efforts it says it has made to curb such behavior and make its VR platforms more age-appropriate.<\/p>\n

But this is just the latest in a growing list of concerns about Meta products and their potential harms to children.<\/p>\n

But this is just the latest in a growing list of concerns about Meta products and their potential harms to children. You may remember Meta whistleblower Frances Haugen\u2019s congressional testimony<\/a> back in 2021, when she alleged that the company was aware of its social media platforms\u2019 harms to children. And earlier this week, Sen. Ed Markey \u2014 a Massachusetts Democrat who wrote to Meta in 2023<\/a> with concerns about its platforms\u2019 potential risks for children \u2014 urged the company to stop allowing minors to interact with its artificial intelligence chatbots<\/a> after multiple reports found that the bots had engaged in sexually charged conversations with children.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s allegations on Capitol Hill raised concerns about one of Meta\u2019s most signature products and one of Zuckerberg\u2019s pet projects \u2014 its VR headset. But safety issues at the company seem far more widespread.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Three years ago, I wrote this piece about Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg\u2019s quest to dominate the virtual reality…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[260],"tags":[18,19,17,82,286,287,288],"class_list":{"0":"post-56136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-virtual-reality","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-virtual-reality","13":"tag-virtualreality","14":"tag-vr"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}