Roblox is rolling out even more protections for children as concerns persist

Gaming platform Roblox is popular with young children, but research by law enforcement and news organizations has revealed troubling cases predators using Roblox to target childrenalong with a lawsuit illegal gambling on the platform. These growing concerns about child safety are part of why Roblox has rolled out a series of updates with new protections for its youngest and most vulnerable users, including age limits, screen time limits, and new parental controls.

Roblox first announced it was rolling out a suite of parental controls in October, and now parents can manage their children’s accounts from their own devices and accounts. Within these controls, parents can set daily screen time limits and view their children’s friends list. Parents will have to connect their Roblox account with their children’s account. New content labels, based on content and not age, will help parents understand the different elements – violence, foul language and so on – in different games or experiences. Players under the age of 9 will automatically be limited to games that contain minimal or mild levels of these elements, but parents can also manually select which label their children can see and play.

New age gates will also be introduced to limit younger gamers’ ability to chat with other users. Gamers under the age of 13 can only chat with other players in games or experiences, as direct messaging capabilities are disabled outside of them. There will also be a new default setting in games that limits these younger users to public broadcast messages only.

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Earlier this month, the company introduced new changes that prevent children under 13 from accessing social hangout elements in games, which Roblox said includes “atmosphere games, clubs, social and support spaces where the primary theme or purpose of the experience is to interact (e.g., via text or voice chat) with other users as yourself.” It also prevents young gamers from accessing freeform creation tools. Gamers under the age of 13 will no longer have access to these interactive features in games from Monday, November 18. These restrictions do not apply to role-playing games or real-life simulations, where a gamer can assume a different character or identity.

Roblox is also changing its standard to prevent gamers under the age of 13 from accessing unrated games. The company says games without these ratings – which usually indicate the level of violence, gore, and other sensitive content – ​​will not be searchable or playable for players under 13. Developers have until December 3 to complete a survey for each experience they want. to be accessible to players under 13 and to let Roblox know what kind of experience they offer so that a rating can be provided. Creators who do not complete the questionnaire will have their experiences labeled as unrated and subsequently unplayable for young teens.