Roblox Company has announced changes to its child safety policies that will affect how tween users can interact with its dominant gaming platform. The walk follows persistent accusations that the company automatically fails to provide protection to its predominantly younger participant base and, more recently, a damning report calling Roblox an “X-rated pedophile hellhole” that exposes young people to ” grooming, pornography, violence.” extremely abusive content and speech.
In July, Bloomberg revealed that Roblox had reported 13,316 cases of child exploitation in the last generation, and that more than two people had been arrested for abusing minors after touching them in the game. This was followed by a report in August from short-selling firm Hindenberg Research which, in addition to accusing Roblox of intentionally inflating the number of participants to investors, shared several examples of Roblox’s glaring failure to cater to young people.
In both cases, Roblox reacted to the allegations, calling the Hindenberg Inquiry report “simply misleading” and insisting that the Bloomberg article contained “blatant mischaracterizations.” But despite Roblox’s continued protests, the company has now announced several changes to its child safety policies.
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As The Verge reported, Roblox sent an email to people here saying that children under 13 will soon need parental permission to access “chat features” by default, while children under 9 years will do it too. Request permission to play stories with an adult content rating of “moderate,” which may come with “mild violence or crude humor.” Roblox says those restrictions will automatically be removed as users reach positive milestones for the day, assuming parents and users haven’t already made changes manually.
Additionally, Roblox is introducing a new account type for parents after speed that, when connected to their child’s account, will allow them to update parental controls from their own device and get information about their child’s online activities and friends. his son. The company applauds those changes, which follow updated guidelines offered in July that require creators to tag in-game stories based on content type rather than day, as part of its “commitment to making the platform one of the environments in safer line for our users, especially the youngest ones.
Roblox has long had an arguable presence in gaming, as exemplified by Crowd Construct Games’ accusation in 2021 that Roblox is “exploiting” young developers on the platform, many of whom are under 18 years old. And Roblox CEO Stefano Corazza raised eyebrows earlier this year, later telling Eurogamer that the company had “hired some teenagers who had millions of players,” following up on advice that young people make money on the platform. It is not exploitation, it is a “gift.” A Roblox spokesperson soon contacted Eurogamer to fear that the company will no longer hire minors, despite Corazza’s claims.
