cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Being forced to link facebook account

Crazy_Sane
Superstar
The night before last, I was enjoying a game of Star Trek Bridge Crew with a new acquaintance. We got along well and decided to add each other as friends. I went to add my new friend, as I had many times before, but found myself confronted by a message insisting that I link a facebook account. This made me angry.

I don't use facebook as a matter of principle. I once had an active account, like all the other drones, but made the decision to dissolve it some time ago. My reasons were simple. Aside from not wanting my personal information used as a commodity, facebook is an invasion of my privacy. I don't want everyone knowing my every movement. Even if I don't post anything, all it takes is for someone to tag me in a photo and my privacy is violated.

Now I was faced with a choice. Yield to this unsettling demand or lose the ability to add new friends on my Quest. I thought to myself, 'perhaps I can do this without anyone knowing'. But I had underestimated the intrusive nature of facebook.

If I was going to be bullied into creating a facebook account against my will, I was going to be a ghost. No one but the handful of people I socialise with through Oculus would know that I had betrayed my beliefs for my Oculus Quest. I created an account using a different last name, and had planned to invoke every privacy feature at my disposal.

Just a few minutes after creating the account someone I knew had sent me a friend request, which meant people were already aware of my presence on facebook. In spite of the fact that I had used a random last name and had no intention of alerting anyone to my reluctant incursion into facebook, my privacy had already been violated. Not only that, the fact that I had tried to obscure my identity was obvious.

I frantically scoured the settings, trying to remove any indication of my existance. But I soon came to the realisation that facebook has made this very difficult, if not impossible. It seems you can limit your visibility, but you can't remove it completely. My heart sunk as it became clear that I would have to make a difficult choice. I would have to choose between the modern wonder of virtual interaction with another human being and my privacy.

My opinion of facebook was just starting to change. With the Oculus Quest they had brought something wonderful into the world, and into my life. And they hadn't tried to force facebook down my throat as a condition of ownership. But now my feelings of mistrust have returned. And I'm angry. Angry enough that I want to sell my Quest in defiance, regardless of how much joy it brings me. I'm not sure if I can bring myself to do that, but at the very least I will most likely limit my VR experiences to single player experiences. It will feel very lonely, but at least I can exercise my right to privacy.

What are your thoughts on the subject?
14 REPLIES 14

Pacman8030
Expert Protege
Just make a dummy Facebook account just so you can link your Quest to it, then never log into it again. If you are really worried about privacy, why are you using a device that is owned by Facebook and covered with cameras?

Crazy_Sane
Superstar
That's what I tried to do. Should I have also bought a dummy phone just to activate it?

And the camera data is supposedly anonymous. Also, one of the Quest's security fearures is the light in the center of the front panel. It's hardwired to the camera's power supply. So if it's not on the cameras can't be on.

I'm not suggesting that facebook is evil, just that you should be able to use a Quest and maintain online anonymity outside of Oculus without resorting to fraud.

parsecn
Heroic Explorer
You only need watch The Creepy Line (2018) to reaffirm your privacy concerns (and more). My heart sank when Facebook purchased Oculus. I'm actually surprised to see that it took them nearly 3 years to require what I consider draconian measure to simply utilise social aspects of their product. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqlDtjnwyPA

kojack
MVP
MVP

parsecn said:

I'm actually surprised to see that it took them nearly 3 years to require what I consider draconian measure to simply utilise social aspects of their product.


Actually around 5.5 years. They bought out Oculus in 2014 before the DK2 started shipping. Although it's 3.5 years that they've had social features. They could have pushed it earlier though, like turning this forum into a facebook page.



Just a few minutes after creating the account someone I knew had sent me friend request, which meant people were already aware of my presence on facebook.

When I installed the Epic game store, there were already over 200 friend requests waiting for me. I never told anybody my account and I don't play online. Either it's random spammers or some famous fortnite streamer has a similar account name. 🙂


Author: Oculus Monitor,  Auto Oculus Touch,  Forum Dark Mode, Phantom Touch Remover,  X-Plane Fixer
Hardware: Threadripper 1950x, MSI Gaming Trio 2080TI, Asrock X399 Taich
Headsets: Wrap 1200VR, DK1, DK2, CV1, Rift-S, GearVR, Go, Quest, Quest 2, Reverb G2

WhipDiddyWhip
Explorer
i've chosen to just go without social stuff in vr, 

RedRizla
Honored Visionary
Seems like it's happening to other apps and not just in VR. Why change all this if it worked great without requiring a Facebook account? While this might suit some people, it's obvious from these posts that keep popping up that it doesn't suit other people who want to get into VR.

I like to play online with friends who I know, but if they pick up an Oculus Quest in the future I won't be able to play with them online now. Some of these friends refuse to create a facebook account and it's not something I want to do either just to play with friends online. Looks like I'll skip the Oculus Quest now because I'm going to be missing out on some of it's features just because I don't want to create a facebook account.

https://metro.co.uk/2019/12/27/facebook-security-update-stop-using-messenger-chat-friends-11965565/

grumber
Explorer
Yeah this policy sucks.

tateconcepts
Protege
@kojack
@Crazy_Sane
I totally can see where this might be a bit sensitive to both the public and Facebook as an org. I bought a Quest for my kids to use and I thought I might check it out myself. I don't have a Facebook account any longer, was probably one of their many firsts. Coming from a perspective of where I'm required to examine many different social media platforms and in different languages daily, having FB is a risk to me personally. I can say that if Facebook wants no input or monetary contribution from those whom just don't do Facebook, that's a loss to them. 

 Instead, let me propose another idea. If Facebook really wanted to get good data collection and get a larger field of view bias, it would be in your best interest to leave Oculus as it is BUT permit those with ANY SAML/OAUTH type provider to be the identity and collect away. Sure, you want the synergy of Oculus streaming to FB - what if you could take that to anyone's platform? 

Think about this... think about the cost savings, the better data collection, the user satisfaction and best of all synergetic revenue.... 

patcilein
Honored Guest
I dont like that i have to no facebook