Facebook is now rolling out Messenger on Oculus Quest and Quest 2 headsets, and trust me, I cringe.
Messenger is only available to those who have already linked their Facebook accounts to their Quest or Quest 2 headphones, and those who have merged their separate Oculus account are currently safe. But if you’re one of the people who finally bought an Oculus headset October, you probably already know that Facebook requires you to sign in to your account first. This is understandable if this announcement feels like a bigger attempt by Facebook to take over your device—And collect more of your data.
The addition of Messenger to Oculus is completely at odds with the purpose of VR: immersion. I do not just want to read messages in the headset, how exactly is someone supposed to respond in Messenger during a Quest? Facebook said in its press release that users can write messages by typing them into VR, selecting something prescribed or using the voice-to-text feature, and it gives no further details. Typing via a thumb stick of the controller has never been fast nor easy, not everyone can type without looking at the keyboard, and voice-to-text is not 100% accurate. It is not always responsible regional dialects or speech impairments.
And I mean, why do you want to Chat with VR in VR VRChat exist? Thank you Facebook for offering you the option to sign in to Messenger on your Oculus headset, which is the best – the bigger problem here is Facebook’s propensity to harvest data.
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Requiring users linking their Oculus to their Facebook account means that social media already has access your VR gaming habits, but Facebook collect data from its Messenger app as well.
When Apple ‘privacy food labelsFor the App Store last year, it hit a CVS-sized receipt on Facebook Messenger. First noticed by 9to5Mac, it appears Facebook collects an absurd amount of data about its users, including: sensitive information for product customization, analytics, and app features; financial information for third-party advertisers and a category with a mysterious designation ‘other purposes’; and device ID data.
It is likely that if you use Messenger in your Oculus, Facebook will also collect data from there; According to Apple’s privacy etiquette, Facebook collects data about users’ game content. When announced the company for the first time it would require Oculus users to log in with their Facebook accounts, and it confirmed that it would collect data about users’ ‘relevant content’ about ‘Oculus activity’, and that the data would be used to Oculus recommend events or VR programs.
Oculus is another way for the company to collect more data about its users, and the addition of Messenger to the VR platform gives the company more chance to do so. Combine it all with Facebooks abysmal privacy track record, and honestly, it took all the joy out of VR games with an Oculus headset.