Buzz
The widely popular online game Roblox is rolling out advanced content moderation tools aimed at empowering parents to better oversee their children's gaming activities.
In a recent email to parents managing children's accounts, Roblox announced the upcoming launch of "parent-privileged accounts" next month. These accounts will connect to a child's profile, enabling parents to monitor and adjust settings remotely. Parents will also gain insights into their child's daily screen time and in-game friendships.
Roblox will now mandate parental consent for certain chat functionalities for users under 13. Additionally, the platform will introduce detailed content labels, replacing generic age ratings, to help parents restrict access to specific content types. Children under 9 will require parental approval to engage with experiences marked as “Moderate” in content maturity. (It’s surprising this wasn’t implemented earlier!)
At present, Roblox accounts can be created instantly, with users selecting their age without any verification process. Adding a phone number enables voice chat functionality. This raises concerns that tech-savvy children could easily bypass the new parental controls and content restrictions by falsifying their age during account creation.
Fresh Roblox parental controls are being introduced in response to a report labeling the platform as an "X-rated pedophile haven."
The unveiling of these new safety measures follows a recent scathing investigation by Hindenburg Research, which described Roblox as an "X-rated pedophile nightmare" where children are exposed to "grooming, explicit content, violence, and highly abusive language."
The report highlights disturbing Roblox content accessible to children, such as games like "Public Bathroom Simulator Vibe," "Beat Up The Homeless," "Escape to Epstein Island," and "Diddy Party." It also details the open exchange of child pornography within the platform. Hindenburg's findings echo an earlier alert from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, which declared Roblox "too risky for children."
The platform hosts a significant number of young users. As per Roblox's SEC filing, 21% of its 79.5 million players are under 9 years old, another 21% are aged 9-12, and 16% fall between 13 and 16 years old.
In addition to exposing the "pedophile hellscape," Hindenburg's report alleges that Roblox has misled investors, regulators, advertisers, and the SEC regarding user numbers and other critical metrics.
In its reply to the Hindenburg report, Roblox asserts that it employs a "comprehensive system of proactive and preventive safety measures to detect and stop harmful or malicious activities on the platform." It also dismisses Hindenburg's financial allegations as "misleading."
A brief search on Roblox shows that many of the specific experiences mentioned in Hindenburg's report have been removed. However, as of this writing, users can still access "Freak Off," "Beat up Homeless People," and the "Public Bathroom Simulator Vibe." Despite being marketed for players aged 9 and above, it took me less than a minute to witness avatars engaging in simulated sexual acts on a bathroom floor in the Public Bathroom Simulator.
