The gaming website Roblox is to limit adult strangers from talking to children by the end of this year in an effort to root out “bad actors”.
The fast-growing platform which has more than 110 million users a day playing games like Grow A Garden and Brookhaven RP has been hit by child safety concerns as experiments found children as young as five may be able to communicate with adults while playing games.
Last month the US site had to announce it was banning vigilantes who were trying to catch predators. Last year Roblox submitted more than 24,000 reports to the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children which handles suspected child sexual exploitation in the US.
It said on Wednesday that by the end of 2025 it will start requiring all users who use the text and chat communication tools that sit alongside the thousands of available games to go through age checks. If they cannot prove they are 18 or over they will have to prove they already know the person they want to talk with. Currently Roblox only requires proof that a user is over 13 years old to allow communication.
“We’re making two fundamental changes,” said Matt Kaufman, the chief safety officer at the games company worth about $92bn. “By the end of the year, we will require all users who have access to communication on Roblox to go through an age check process or age estimation process.
“What that process does is it gives us more information about how old the user actually is without relying on their self-reported age at sign up. That’s important, both for young users, so that we know whether they’re really at the right age to be able to use communication features. And it also helps address bad actors who may try to impersonate younger users. The second thing we’re doing is we’re implementing limits so that younger users cannot talk to adults who they do not know in real life.”
The platform has been growing rapidly and recently started allowing film, TV and games companies like Netflix, Lionsgate and Sega, to create games using their intellectual property on Roblox.
In April, the Guardian reported “deeply disturbing” research that exposed how easy it was for children to encounter inappropriate content and interact unsupervised with adults. One parent also said they had discovered that adult strangers had been able to approach their child on the platform and coax them into sharing nude images of themselves. Others complained the platform exposed their children to violent and sexual content that left them disturbed and struggling to sleep.
Roblox said in a blog: “Our users, creator community, parents, partners, legislators all want the same thing we do: to help keep young people safe while they play, learn, or explore on Roblox. We’re continually innovating on this front – refining and optimising our safety systems, policies and moderation tools.”
