Roblox has announced an update to its child-safety polices following reports that it lacked protections for underage users. As part of the changes, the company plans to give parents more control over their kids on the platform.
As first reported by Bloomberg, Roblox sent an email to parents earlier this week to share the updated rules. The company said the moves are part of its “commitment to making the platform one of the safest online environments for our users, particularly the youngest users.”
The full email was later published by The Verge, with the key changes highlighted below:
- New accounts with parent privileges for viewing and updating parental controls, as well as accessing insights about daily screen time, friends, and other information about a child’s Roblox usage;
- Accounts with parent privileges will also let parents receive notifications about their child’s spending and other activity;
- Roblox will soon begin labeling games and experiences based on their content type rather than age, allowing parents to limit their children’s access to certain types of content;
- Starting in November, users under the age of 13 will need parent permission to access certain chat features, while kids under 9 will need permission to play games with moderate violence.
In July, Bloomberg revealed that Roblox had reported 13,316 instances of child exploitation last year. Since 2018, US police have arrested at least two dozen people accused of abusing or abducting victims they met on the platform.
Earlier this month, short-selling firm Hindenburg Research published a major report on Roblox, accusing the company of bloating its DAU and engagement metrics, as well as comprising child safety and turning the platform into “X-rated pedophile hellscape, exposing children to grooming, pornography, violent content and extremely abusive speech.”
Roblox called the claims misleading, saying that it “takes any content or behavior on the platform that doesn’t abide by its standards extremely seriously, and Roblox has a robust set of proactive and preventative safety measures designed to catch and prevent malicious or harmful activity on the platform.”