Roblox, the fast-growing children’s gaming platform, will give parents greater oversight of their children’s activity and restrict younger users from the most violent, crude and scary content after warnings about childcare, exploitation and exchange of indecent images.
Starting Monday, Roblox will give parents access to a dashboard on their own phone that shows who their child interacts with, how much time they spend on Roblox each day, and to make sure they accurately record their age.
It will also restrict users under nine to games rated “mild,” and access to “moderate” content will only be allowed with parental approval. Mild content might involve “unrealistic blood or unrealistic violence,” while blood would appear realistic for moderate violence.
Tweens will also be blocked from accessing chat features outside of games as part of a global tightening of rules on gaming. most visited online destination among British children aged eight to 12 after Google, Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, and TikTok.
The move comes after a short seller claimed last month that he had found child sexual abuse content, sex games, violent content and abusive speech on the site. In the United Kingdom, Peter Kyle, secretary of state for science and technology, told parliament: “I hope that company does better in protecting service users, particularly children.”
Roblox’s millions of brightly colored user-generated game worlds are enjoyed by 90 million daily users around the world, according to the Silicon Valley company with annual revenue of $3bn (£2.4bn). ).
Kids who use Roblox can choose from 6 million games and “experiences” created by users, and play with friends and strangers who can send them messages in real time.
The company already runs automated software that clamps down on text that aims to lure kids off the platform and examines images, audio, video and 3D models for content that violates the company’s standards. community.
Among the most popular games last week were the dress-up game Dress to Impress and the fishing game Fisch. But there are also games that revolve around depression, violence and some that are described as racism simulators.
Last month, Hindenburg Research described Roblox as “an which is open. to little children.”
He revealed that he took a short position in Roblox shares, while the gaming platform described the claims as “misleading” and said safety and civility were “fundamental” to the company.
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On October 16, Representative Mike Reader told parliament about a constituent who was a volunteer moderator and had “identified and banned more than 14,000 accounts involved in the grooming and exploitation of children and the sharing of indecent images” as part of a group.
Kyle responded: “Companies releasing products into our society should see it as a privilege, not a right. “I have high hopes, on behalf of this country, of ensuring that security is built in from the beginning.”
Restrictions to prevent children under 13 from accessing new Roblox games that are pending maturity rating will begin on December 3. Starting Monday, children under 13 will also be prevented from using games that use whiteboard writing because they attract “teenagers… to draw things that may be inappropriate for our younger audience,” the director of security, Matt Kaufman.
Explaining the new parental controls, Roblox senior product manager Dina Lamdany said: “Parents will be able to see their children’s screen time over the past week, as well as set daily limits on that screen time. Additionally, from that same panel, parents will be able to see their children’s friends. We hope this encourages parents to have conversations with their children about who they spend time with on Roblox.”