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Roblox is making changes in an attempt to keep younger players safe in the online platform. Beginning later this month, children under the age of 13 will no longer be able to search, discover or play unrated experiences within Roblox, and will be unable to access social hangout experiences.
“Parents and young users need accurate information about the experiences they are playing. Moving forward, all creators must complete a questionnaire for each experience they want available for users under 13. This means that all unrated experiences will be filtered out of search and any public or recommended sorts for users under 13,” says the announcement.
Creators have until December 3rd to fill out the questionnaire if they want their content rated for play for those under the of 13. After that point, the unrated content will be filtered out.
The changes to social hangouts will take effect earlier, on November 18th.
“We are also updating our policies to address user behavior that can potentially pose a risk to our youngest users,” says the post, desperately trying to avoid using words like ‘pedophiles’ or ‘predators’. “Starting November 18, experiences with certain types of interactive features, specifically social hangouts and free-form 2D user creation, will only be playable to users over the age of 13. Creators will always be able to play their own experience or any experience they have edit access to.”
Earlier this year, a report by Bloomberg addressed the scale of child safety issues within Roblox, highlighting 13,316 instances of child exploitation reported on the platform in 2023. The following month, Hindenberg Research – an organisation which reports on businesses in order to profit from short-selling – published its own report labelling Roblox a “pedophile hellscape”. Roblox responded to claims in both reports, saying Bloomberg’s coverage featured “glaring mischaracterisations” and that it “rejects” Hindenberg’s report.
It’s arguably worth putting that number in context, since Roblox is vastly successful with 78 million daily active users as of earlier this year. It’s also worth noting that if you perfectly set the parental controls and dodge the predators, the reward is that your kid gets to safely play some of the worst, most exploitatively-designed video games imaginable. You think the skinner box design, FOMO and gambling tactics are bad in mainstream free-to-play games? Wait until you see what they’re like when they’re created by companies with no public reputation or licensors to protect.
My kid’s school recently sent home a leaflet about Roblox, explaining what it is and how parents can keep children safe in it. Part of the leaflet explained the concept of “ODers”, which apparently stands for “Online Daters”, who in this context are adults who use Roblox to find an adult romantic partner. I looked it up and this is apparently a real thing and I’ve been spiralling ever since. I always thought I’d be the sort of person to keep up with technological and social trends, but I’m sloping into middle age and realising that no, I can’t, I won’t. They’ve changed what ‘it’ is and now what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary to me.
I tell every parent I meet what I’ll tell you: under 13 or over 13, safe or not safe, don’t let your kids play Roblox. Teach them to have taste.