I had an Oculus Quest and it was a really great device. After the "Meta" rebrand, the quality rapidly decreased and now it wants me to upload my ID to Meta to keep using it. Absolutely not! Zuckerberg already has way too much information on me, uploading my state issued identification to them is such an insane ask, I will never do it. While this looks like interesting hardware, the company behind it has unacceptable and user-hostile practices, so I'll pass.
The aggressive push for ID verification is a direct result of massive government lawsuits regarding online child safety. As a strict condition of this settlement, Meta is legally mandated to enforce hard age gates.
Plus they already have all that data... Your ID is not private information. It's an identifier that they don't need or want.
I linked to two articles describing Meta's fight to have age verification laws put into place (even before the settlement). The most obvious reason is to try to get some sort of law in place that they believe they can comply with _without_ having to make changes to their algorithms in a way that might hurt their business.
I don't think they particularly _want_ legal id (though maybe they do? who knows)... but it's obviously false that this was caused by the government when Meta itself was lobbying for such laws even before then.
slowin · · focus · HN ↗
miltonlaxer · · focus · HN ↗
Plus they already have all that data... Your ID is not private information. It's an identifier that they don't need or want.
wren6991 · · focus · HN ↗
reassess_blind · · focus · HN ↗
porkshoe · · focus · HN ↗
I don't think they particularly _want_ legal id (though maybe they do? who knows)... but it's obviously false that this was caused by the government when Meta itself was lobbying for such laws even before then.
<a href="https://techoversight.org/2025/07/29/bloomberg-meta-google-lobbyists-fight-to-pass-the-buck-on-kids-online-safety/" rel="nofollow">https://techoversight.org/2025/07/29/bloomberg-meta-google-l...
<a href="https://thedeepdive.ca/who-pushes-age-verification-bills/" rel="nofollow">https://thedeepdive.ca/who-pushes-age-verification-bills/