With new safety update, Roblox aims to boost protection for young gamers

In an effort to address child safety concerns, digital gaming platform Roblox announced Monday that it is rolling out a major update to its safety features and parental controls.

The update includes amped-up parental controls and communication restrictions for players under 13.

"Any instance of a child being hurt or put in danger that has anything to do with Roblox is just absolutely unacceptable for us," Roblox's chief safety officer, Matt Kaufman, told Here & Now on Monday. "We make safety our number one priority."

Roblox has been criticized for a lack of child safety protocols in the past. These updates look to change that.

"You're seeing lawsuits filed across the country alleging child safety concerns on these big platforms that attract children," Olivia Carville, a journalist covering child safety in the digital world, told Here & Now in October. "Congress, the courts, child safety advocates are really calling out for more protections for kids in this space."

New parental controls

The update introduces remote-accessible parental controls – a change from existing controls only accessible through the child's account. Now, a parent or guardian can use their own Roblox account to manage and monitor their child's gaming experience.

In addition to the already existing spend limits, which allow parents to manage how much real money a child spends on in-game purchases, parents can now also see their child's friends list and set a hard limit on screen time for the game.

The new parental controls will also allow adults to restrict what content their child can access using four new categories to filter content: minimal, mild, moderate, and restricted.

Players younger than 9 years old will be allowed to access the minimal and mild categories by default. Parents can enable the other two categories depending on what they feel is appropriate.

Dr. Michael Rich, a pediatrician and director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Boston Children's Hospital, told NPR that though general age-based protocols are a step in the right direction, they're not a catch-all answer to child safety online.

"It finally comes down to the parents' understanding and judgment of how well their child takes responsibility and respect for themselves and others in that space," Rich said, adding that Roblox is more of a social scene rather than an average game.

Restricting DMs

In a further attempt to mitigate inappropriate content and communication for their young gamers, Direct Messaging within a game will be, by default, disabled for Roblox players under 13. This setting can be adjusted under Parental Controls. Also, users under 13 will be unable to participate in Platform Chat – messaging other users outside of games or experiences.

Kaufman said that as many as 50,000 messages could be going across the Roblox systems at any moment. The company uses enhanced AI to determine whether to let certain messages through and filter out messages that do not meet its standards.

The new built-in restriction comes after years of concern over children meeting adults in private, unrestricted chat rooms.

Carville has investigated multiple criminal indictments where children were harmed or even abducted after meeting a predator anonymously on Roblox. In one instance, a game developer was arrested for kidnapping after hiring an Uber to drive a 15-year-old girl he met on Roblox across state lines. In another, a registered sex offender solicited nude photos from an 8-year-old girl in exchange for Robux, the platform's in-game currency.

"As [Roblox grows], it gets harder and harder to moderate the platform," Carville told Here & Now. "Looking forward, parents really need to know what the risks are and what they're comfortable with their children doing."