A brand new investigation reveals that kids as younger as 5 can simply entry inappropriate content material and work together unsupervised with adults on Roblox, regardless of the platform’s child-friendly picture and up to date security updates. The Guardian experiences: Describing itself as “the last word digital universe,” Roblox options hundreds of thousands of video games and interactive environments, recognized collectively as “experiences.” Among the content material is developed by Roblox, however a lot of it’s user-generated. In 2024, the platform had greater than 85 million each day lively customers, an estimated 40% of whom are below 13. Whereas the corporate mentioned it “deeply sympathized” with mother and father whose kids got here to hurt on the platform, it mentioned “tens of hundreds of thousands of individuals have a optimistic, enriching and protected expertise on Roblox each day.”
Nonetheless, in an investigation shared with the Guardian, the digital-behavior specialists Revealing Actuality found “one thing deeply disturbing … a troubling disconnect between Roblox’s child-friendly look and the truth of what kids expertise on the platform.” […] Regardless of new instruments launched final week geared toward giving mother and father extra management over their kids’s accounts, the researchers concluded: “Security controls that exist are restricted of their effectiveness and there are nonetheless important dangers for kids on the platform.”