Roblox is adding new restrictions to young children’s accounts and revamping its parental control features as part of its platform’s enhanced safety features. The change comes in the wake of damaging publicity about the company’s safety practices and amid a broader industry review of the impact online platforms have on children.
Currently, Roblox is severely limiting the ability of its youngest users to interact with other users on the service. The company plans to ban all children under 13 from exchanging private messages with other users outside of certain games and experiences “in the coming months.” The company will continue to allow younger children to see publicly broadcast messages within games and experiences, but they will not be able to send messages to other users without parental permission.
The added restrictions follow an earlier update in which the company prohibited children under 13 from accessing certain types of experiences. This includes “social hangouts and free-form user-created experiences,” as well as unrated experiences.
Roblox also makes it easy for parents to set and adjust parental control settings. The changes, some of which were previously detailed by Bloomberg, will allow parents to monitor their children’s Roblox usage and settings from their own devices. Previously, Roblox’s parental control features required parents to make adjustments to their children’s devices. Parents can now receive push notifications when their child is seeking approval for a specific action, such as participating in a higher maturity rating experience. Parents can also monitor their child’s screen time statistics and set daily limits. If you exceed the limit, you will no longer be able to access the app.
The change is Roblox’s latest effort to address safety concerns about the service. A Bloomberg Businessweek report from earlier this year detailed Roblox’s alleged “pedophile problem,” stating, “Since 2018, U.S. police have used Roblox to meet and groom people. At least 20 people have been arrested on suspicion of abducting and abusing victims. ” Hindenburg Research, a known short seller, also recently released a report accusing Roblox of failing to protect children from predators.
