Parents were rejoicing this week as Roblox, the popular online game marketed to children, announced that they were introducing some big changes to their controversial chat features.
It was confirmed that the platform would be implementing significant updates to its safety systems and parental controls – including blocking those under 13 from messaging others online – as soon as 2025.
The red flags parents need to know about
While many have been reassured by the new rules, that have complimented the Australian government’s ban on social media for children under 16, many online safety experts are warning parents to not get too sucked into what they view as a false sense of hope.
According to former detective and child safety expert, Kristi McVee, the changes to Roblox’s chat options appear to be positive on the surface, but parents need to dig a little deeper to make sure their children are completely safe while using the app.
“Whilst Roblox has made what appears positive changes to protect children under the age of 13, the changes are a fake ‘security’ measure for parents and less than what Roblox can do to protect children,” Kristi told Kidspot.
“My biggest beef which the surface level protective measures Roblox released, is that it puts the onus back on the parents to ensure children are safe on their game. These changes were made purely as a ‘reputation saving exercise’ after being labeled a ‘pedophile’s hellscape’ in the Hindenburg Report in October.”
A parent’s responsibility?
According to Kristi, putting the responsibility back on the parents is a major red flag relating to the new rules.
“Roblox chose to make it a parent’s responsibility to keep kids safe instead of blocking and removing the millions of predatory adults who prey upon kids in the game and the millions of inappropriate games and content that our children have access to,” she insists.
“They know that the game users and content are problematic, yet they have taken the easy option to make parents responsible for a game specifically targeted and aimed at children.
“For children under the age of 13 years, a parent account NEEDS to be set up and linked to their children’s account to be able to set up the new safety measures, however, from 13 years plus, they no longer have any control over their accounts.”
What about kids who don’t have an account linked?
Similar to many people’s concerns about the social media ban on under 16 seeing children lie about their ages, Kristi admits she is also concerned that this ‘trend’ will filter into online games such as Roblox.
“As a detective and cyber safety educator, I saw numerous children set up accounts using fake dates of birth to varying social media platforms to enable access. What’s to stop any child from creating accounts doing this? There is no age verification, so anyone can create a 13-plus account and start playing/talking to strangers,” she points out.
“Kids are very resourceful and will find a way if they want to. As parents, we need tech companies and especially platforms designed for our kids to take some accountability and do more.
“They have ways to identify and remove these predatory accounts, yet they choose to turn a blind eye and tell parents it’s their fault if their child is abused on our platform,” she adds.
How to play safely on Roblox
Now is not the time to panic, however. If your child does play Roblox, there are ways to keep them safe.
“If you choose to let your children on Roblox, ensure they have the right date of birth and use whatever settings are available to you,” Kristi suggests.
“Regularly supervise and play alongside them, be in the room with them, and check their usage weekly.
“Get to know the platform and how it works, identify what games your child is playing, and be mindful of 3rd party messaging apps like Discord. Kids might not talk to each other in the game, but they can still communicate via other messaging apps,” she adds.
About Roblox’s new chat rules for under 13s
Earlier this week, Chief Safety Officer Matt Kaufman made the announcement that Roblox would be making some significant changes to its platform to make it safer for some of its youngest users.
Though he said that connecting with others is core to the Roblox experience, Kaufman also acknowledged that safety is of the utmost importance.
As a result of this, users under the age of 13 will no longer be able to message others on Roblox outside of games or experiences. There will also be a built-in setting introduced limiting users under 13 to public broadcast messages only within a game or experience.
By default, users under 13 will not be able to directly message others – however, parents can change this setting in Parental Controls.