For many families during the pandemic, the massive Roblox gaming platform was a fun pleasure spot to keep kids busy and connected with friends. Its popularity among co-opted children has helped fuel a successful public debut for the company, which relies on its users to create games and other content.
However, this platform of 32.6 million daily users – more than half of whom are under 13 – has some dark corners. In some games, players’ blocked avatars simulate sex, engage in cruel discussions, and “meet” other avatars. Although much of this is not new, Roblox’s explosive growth has drawn new attention to what is happening on the sidelines – and to the company’s responsibility to protect its young audience.
Roblox is now working on developing content ratings for games and ways to make parental control easier to find and use, said Remy Malan, trusted vice president of trust and security for Roblox and its director of privacy.
Even when children say they are under the age of 13 when creating accounts, age-appropriate games may appear on their “recommended for you” lists. In hard-to-find controls, parents can restrict the games that children can play in Roblox to those deemed appropriate by the company. But of the tens of millions of multiplayer games in Roblox, only about 1,000 are on that clean list.
Bryan Buffinton, a father from Tampa, Florida, had done his research before allowing his 8-year-old son to play Roblox. He read the company’s parenting guide and knew how to restrict the games his son could access. So he was shocked one day last year, when his son came to him with his iPad and said, “I think something is wrong.” The boy had entered a Roblox role-playing game where, instead of the typical blocked images, it was a real photograph. She was a woman wearing a belt. And he had several scratch marks on his bottom.