Roblox is adding new restrictions for younger children’s accounts and updating its parental controls as part of a series of security enhancements to its platform. The changes come in the wake of negative reports about the company’s security practices and amid a broader industry discussion about the impact of online platforms on children.
Roblox is now severely limiting the ability of its youngest users to interact with other users on its service. The company plans to prohibit all children under the age of 13 from exchanging private messages with other users outside of specific games or activities “within the next few months.” The company will continue to allow younger children to see messages publicly broadcast in games and entertainment, but they will not be able to send messages to other users without parental permission.
The new restrictions follow a previous update in which the company banned children under 13 from accessing certain types of games. This included unrated games, as well as “Social Hangouts and Freeform User-Generated Games.”
Roblox is also making it easier for parents to set and customize parental control settings. Thanks to the changes, some of which were previously detailed by Bloomberg, parents will be able to monitor their children’s use and settings of Roblox from their own devices. Previously, Roblox’s parental controls required parents to make changes on their child’s device. Now, parents can receive push notifications when their children want permission to do certain things, such as join an experience with a higher maturity rating. Parents will also be able to monitor their children’s screen time statistics and set daily limits after which the app will be inaccessible.
These changes are the latest move by Roblox to address the security concerns of its service. A report published in Bloomberg Businessweek earlier this year detailed what it called a “pedophile problem” on Roblox, noting that “since 2018, U.S. police have arrested at least two dozen people accused of kidnapping or abusing victims they met or groomed through Roblox.” Hindenburg Research, a firm known for its short-selling, also recently released a report accusing Roblox of failing to protect children from predator attacks.
