Roblox will not let users under the age of 13 message others outside of games and experiences on the platform, the company said Friday. Roblox also announced a series of other built-in protections for young users, such as age-gating certain experiences, along with enhanced parental controls.
Roblox has been criticized for failing to protect children and young users from online predators, so these new features seem to be an attempt at regaining trust. A recent Bloomberg investigation exposed how predators are able to find and groom children on Roblox.
Shortly after the Bloomberg report was released, Roblox said it would introduce changes to keep children on its platform safe. Now, it’s officially rolling out protections and giving parents more insight and control into their child’s usage of the platform.
During a press briefing, the company explained that users under the age of 13 will still be able to access in-game chats because Roblox believes that communication is fundamental to gameplay on the platform. However, if a user wants to directly message another person either inside or outside of a game, they will need to request their parent’s permission to do so.
In addition, Roblox is age-gating certain experiences for users under 13. The new restrictions apply to games and experiences that are designed for socializing with people outside of a person’s friends list, such as experiences that allow free-form writing or drawing.
“The reason that we’ve made this decision is that we’ve seen that some of both the content and the conduct in these experiences is more appropriate for older users and teams,” said Dina Lamdany, Roblox’s product lead for user settings and parental controls, during the press briefing.
Although Roblox already offers some parental controls, it previously only allowed them to be managed from a child’s account. Now, the company is introducing remote management, which allows parents to adjust controls and see their child’s activity from their own devices. To do so, parents can link their Roblox account to their child’s account after verifying themselves using an ID or credit card.
Parents can now also see their child’s average weekly screen time and set daily screen time limits. They can also see their child’s friends list.
Up until now, Roblox has labeled experiences by age to display content maturity levels. Now, Roblox is launching simplified descriptions of the types of content available on the platform. If an experience is labeled “minimal,” that means it “may contain occasional mild violence, light unrealistic blood, and/or occasional mild fear.” A “mild” label means that an experience “may contain repeated mild violence, heavy unrealistic blood, mild crude humor, and/or repeated mild fear.”
An experience labeled “moderate” may contain “moderate violence, light realistic blood, moderate crude humor, unplayable gambling content, and/or moderate fear.” A “restricted” experience “may contain strong violence, heavy realistic blood, moderate crude humor, romantic themes, unplayable gambling content, the presence of alcohol, strong language, and/or moderate fear.”
Users under the age of 9 can only access “minimal” or “mild” content by default, and can only access “moderate content” with parental consent. Parents can select the level that they feel is best for their child.
Built-in protections on Roblox will now also be automatically removed once a child grows out of them and moves into another age group. Roblox will notify parents 30 days before their child’s age-based settings change.
“We really aim to be safe by default for users of all ages, and our policies and features will continue to adapt in service of that goal,” Lamdany said. “We think that doing so is the right thing for kids, for parents, creators, investors, and the company overall.”
The changes announced Friday will roll out to all users this week.
