In the march towards Facebook’s rebranding and complete absorption of Oculus, questions have arisen regarding what happens to users who violate Facebook’s Community Standards after they log in with their Facebook IDs. Road To VR reached out to Facebook to get more information, and the response is not encouraging.
When asked how violations of Facebook Community Standards would affect Oculus users, a Facebook spokesperson responded, “If you log in using your Facebook account or merge your Oculus and Facebook accounts and violate the Facebook Community Standards, Conduct in VR Policy or other terms and policies on any of our platforms your access to or use of Oculus products may be impacted. If your account is fully disabled as a result of this violation, you may also lose access to your [games and content]. We are committed to keeping all of our platforms safer.”
The spokesperson could not provide any details about situations such as offline access to purchased content for violators, since that issue has not been considered. Either that or Facebook is not willing to say anything until after the login requirements go into effect for new users on October 20.
One potential violation is the creation of a second account using a pseudonym. Facebook ostensibly requires an actual name and valid birth date for the creation of an account, and any pseudonymous accounts are supposedly flagged. While the Facebook spokesperson indicated to Road To VR that a pseudonym could be explicitly created to separate Oculus activity from general Facebook activity, that pseudonym would still be tied to an existing Facebook account.
Food For Thought
Facebook does not seem to understand the hole it is digging for itself here, or it doesn’t care. Given recent reports from Ars Technica that Facebook’s processes for validating accounts as legitimate or does not leave a great deal to be desired, combined with its history of data breaches and careless access management, any assurance Facebook makes about their motives and their effectiveness at actually protecting users is highly suspect.
Their “captive audience” of Oculus users will likely get a lot smaller by the end of October, to say nothing of New Year’s Day 2023.
