Facebook made ‘tens of thousands’ of Oculus Touch units with odd messages inscribed on them

Facebook is often in the news for screwing something up and that is no different this weekend, although this time around, it isn't for anything as serious as a data leak or breach of user privacy. In an odd turn of events, Facebook accidentally allowed ‘easter egg' messages from prototype Oculus Touch controllers to be printed on ‘tens of thousands' of consumer models. These weird messages include the likes of ”The Masons Were Here' and ‘Big Brother is Watching'.

These inscriptions on Touch controllers were intended to be harmless and fun easter eggs for prototype versions of the Oculus Touch controllers. However, these inscriptions somehow made it onto the internal hardware for tens of thousands of consumer Touch controllers.

The messages on final production hardware say “This Space For Rent” & “?The Masons Were Here.?” A few dev kits shipped with “?Big Brother is Watching?” and “Hi iFixit! We See You!?” but those were limited to non-consumer units. [2/3] pic.twitter.com/po1qyQ10Um

— Nate Mitchell (@natemitchell) April 12, 2019

Facebook's head of VR, Nate Mitchell, admitted to the latest mistake on Twitter last night. Mitchell acknowledged that these messages were “inappropriate and should have been removed”. However, the integrity or functionality of hardware was not compromised.

In the meantime, Facebook has made some changes to its process to make sure this doesn't happen again. If you have one of the newer editions of the Oculus Touch, it might be worth checking to see if there is a message waiting for you.

KitGuru Says: This really isn't a big deal but it does seem like someone at Oculus is aware of Facebook's big brother reputation and doesn't mind poking fun at it. Other messages included ‘This Space For Rent' and ‘Hi iFixit! We see you!', so it seems these messages were mainly intended for internal units and perhaps a few press kit units.

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