On Tuesday, Facebook found another way to increase millions of users – though this time, the shock came from its virtual reality department. The company announced that it would soon mandate Facebook accounts within its Oculus ecosystem, all to “unlock social features.” In the ideal world of Facebook, you would be your Facebook self on the Facebook VR system … instead of an existing, separate “Oculus ID.”
What is it all about, you may ask? This is not the first time a large tech company has tried to combine different services under one umbrella of “unified account”. But while Google, Microsoft, Amazon and others have spent years building such empires, no one has pulled the bait and switch just like Facebook did yesterday. And it’s not a matter of technical business as usual. Facebook’s latest decision deserves fierce scrutiny, at the moment, before it explodes like a virus outside the niche that is virtual reality.
The Facebooking is not new – just extreme
For older, existing Oculus VR products, this mandatory switch from Oculus ID to Facebook accounts will begin January 1, 2023 – and older devices will still function in an “offline” capacity (and will support tweaks such as page-loaded, non-Oculus apps ). What’s more, buyers of “new” Oculus hardware – including sleeker, higher-performance VR headsets – will not have these old Oculus IDs as an option. If you buy the following fancy-pants headset from the company, your purchase alone will not be enough; you must also sign in with a valid Facebook account before this new headset will work.
Let’s break down both of these possible scenarios, starting with existing headset owners.
Until this week, you may have purchased an Oculus headset and associated software licenses with the expectation that these would exist in their own silo. Oculus was acquired by Facebook in 2014, so there has always been some understanding that whatever you do in Oculus is under Facebook’s purview. If you’re a raging FB critic, you’d have been wise to include things like Zuckerberg and friends stealing your money, device usage data, and your VR app purchase history. Even with a distinct “Oculus account” outside of Facebook, it’s fair to assume that Zuck and his crew see all that stuff. Clear.
But this transition to a Facebook account requirement is unusual in consumer electronics. On the gaming side, no console or affiliate gaming service has ever required the social network of their users (or even their entire email products) to function. (This means you can use Xbox Live without any of Microsoft’s outlook.com addresses.) The exception is the Google Stadium gaming service, which requires a Google Account (inherently a Gmail address), though launched with this as required, as opposed to making a required later in the life cycle of the product.
I also have a Google Account incredible otherwise beast than the version of Facebook. (If Google Plus is successful, I might sing another tune. Sorry.) I can create large-googly-mogly-98761234 as a Google Account, or just about any service that exists, and then add some personally identifiable information information I want, such as a credit card. From there, I can agree to keep references, purchase a purchase history and trade responsibly with that account. Meaning: just because I created a crazy account name and bought goods with it does not mean that I can not be removed from the Service for Violation of the Services (ToS) service.
This works an Oculus ID. Without spending a penny or confirming your real-life name, you can create a username, build a friends list, and get free-to-play software licenses. If you want to purchase software as add-ons, you can add a credit card or request a prepaid voucher code. And if you damage a ToS, whether inside an official Oculus app or in a third-party ecosystem, penalties can be imposed on both your username and your unique ID of your VR headset. They do not need your name or life history to do so.
“Do not forgive if someone is not allowed”
But the real policy of Facebook differs for a large part of the Oculus ID system:
Facebook is a community where everyone uses the name they go by in daily life. This makes it so that you always know who you are connecting with.
The name on your profile should be the name your friends call you in daily life. This name should also appear on an ID as a document from our ID list.
Not pretending to be someone is not allowed.
We have already seen how this policy can result in everything from headaches to safety concerns. Victims of bullying and abuse are just one community with an interest in establishing alternative online identities. The same goes for members of the LGBTQ community. Strangely enough, 2014 protests over the real-name policy included promises by Facebook to expand and clarify its real-name rules for the sake of inclusion and user protection, but the above 2020 language does not reflect such steps in the least.
Less vulnerable users may simply not want their VR activities (gaming, apps, social spaces) added to a “real name” Facebook account for a number of reasons. Or they may vote for software by choosing to use an account system from a third-party app – especially one that works in other VR ecosystems. Users can have an identity established in the online game Rec room on an Oculus headset to play games and socialize with people on PlayStation VR, HTC Vive, or any other headset. Include a Facebook claim on top that will send ripples through established VR communities.
And what happens when Facebook’s history of user manipulation comes to VR? Emotional manipulation within VR works at greater extremes than on a flat screen, if the horror game genre is any indication, so what kind of “A / B testing” would Facebook-connected Oculus users expect? And what if your actions within VR are attached to your real-life identity for Facebook’s “shadow profile” purposes?
Facebook assures users several times that they can expect a safe and secure VR experience, legal name and everything. Regulators around the world have backtracked on how such a policy works against protections such as GDPR, but Facebook has spent years defending and maintaining its real-name policy. You must present on the service as your true self, claims Facebook, and its language is targeted to the public “report[ing] bad behavior, hold[ing] people responsible, and creat[ing] a more hospitable environment across our platforms. “
Surprisingly brazen fashion
Oculus IDs can probably enable all of these things, especially if unique hardware IDs enter the image. Deleting and packing serial numbers of hardware is much harder than doing the same with Facebook accounts and web browsers (which continue to exploit abusive and illegitimate users on Facebook and their web-specific services). From a technological point of view, Facebook takes less advantage of secure login options and much more of the data collection opportunities that come from Facebook feeds. And that includes all accounts associated with these, whether they are wholly owned by Facebook (Instagram, WhatsApp) or created by third parties but have deep, disruptive ties to your Facebook identity (particularly dating apps).
Facebook’s announcement on Tuesday about Oculus says basically the same thing, and it does so in a surprisingly brazen way:
When you sign in to Oculus with your Facebook account, Facebook will use information related to your use of VR and other Facebook products to enhance and enhance your experience. This information is also used to view your personal content, including advertisements. For example, we can show you recommendations for Oculus events you may want, ads on Facebook apps and technologies, or developer ads for their VR apps.
(“For example” as a qualifier is typically an indication of aspirations for sharing data that is much, much higher scale, as opposed to an indication that Facebook has one ceiling in mind.)
All of this can convince you to create a “phantom” Facebook account to continue using existing Oculus devices, set up with a spare email address and salvaged with something other than your legal name. You would then ideally transfer existing digital purchases to that new Facebook identity and search all online friends as needed to build a Facebook-specific VR “friends list.” Crucially, some of the biggest online VR games on the market are their own social matchmaking systems, which were specifically built to work in a cross-platform world of hardware such as the HTC Vive, Valve Index, PlayStation VR, and Windows Mixed Reality.)
But Facebook’s terms of service are very clear: Doing so breaks its rules. That phantom account – and all its attached purchases, including those transferred from a previous Oculus ID – could get the boot.
There is not a bit of a president for this kind of digital acquisition. The closest I can think of is the 2019 shutdown of movie provider UltraViolet. That was rolled out into an identically functioning service, which did not require users to join a new service with specific ties to your real-life identity. With Facebook telling Oculus ID owners that they will have to play by sweeping new rules, what can users legally demand in terms of refunds, software licenses, or other compensation, should they refuse the new terms of Facebook? And can these users go to court and quote Oculus founder Palmer Luckey’s claim that Oculus headset owners would never need a Facebook login to emphatically reject these terms? That is unclear at this time.
