Roblox announces policy changes for pre-teen users amid ongoing accusations of child-safety failures

Roblox Corporation has announced changes to its child-safety policies that'll impact the way pre-teen users can interact with its popular gaming platform. The move follows persitent accusations the company routinely fails to protect its predominantly young player base, and, more recently, a damning report calling Roblox an "X-rated paedophile hellscape" that exposes children to "grooming, pornography, violent content and extremely abusive speech".

Back in July, Bloomberg revealed Roblox had reported 13,316 instances of child exploitation last year, and that more than two dozen people had been arrested for abusing minors following contact in-game. That was followed by a report in August from short-selling firm Hindenberg Research that, as well as accusing Roblox of deliberately inflating player numbers to investors, shared numerous examples of Roblox's apparent failure to keep children safe.

In both cases, Roblox hit back at the accusations, calling the Hindenberg Research report "simply misleading" and insisting the Bloomberg article contained "glaring mischaracterisations". But despite Roblox's constant protestations, the company has now announced numerous changes to its child-safety policies.

As reported by The Verge, Roblox sent out an email to parents this week announcing that children under the age of 13 will soon need parental permission to access "chat features" by default, while children under nine will additionally need permission to play experiences with a content maturity rating of "moderate", which can include "moderate violence or crude humour". Roblox says these restrictions will be automatically lifted as users reach certain age milestones, assuming parents and users haven't already made changes manually.

Addtionally, Roblox is introducing a new type of account for parents next month that, when linked to their child's account, will let them update parental controllers from their own device, and get insights into their child's online activity and friends. The company calls these changes - which follow updated guidelines introduced in July requiring creators to label in-game experiences based on content types rather than age - part of its "commitment to making the platform one of the safest online environments for our users, particularly the youngest users".

Roblox has long been a controversial presence in gaming, as exemplified by People Make Games' accusation in 2021 that Roblox is "exploiting" young developers on the platform, with many of those developers under the age of 18. And Roblox CEO Stefano Corazza raised eyebrows earlier this year after telling Eurogamer the company had "hired some teenagers that had millions of players", following up with the suggestion children making money on the platform isn't exploitation, it's a "gift". A Roblox spokesperson later contacted Eurogamer to stress the company does not hire minors, despite Corazza's assertions.