Toxicity and safety concerns with Roblox
By Jena Ali
Roblox has been a popular online game since the 2010s and there are more than 34m daily active users, the majority being under 13 years old.
Roblox is popular for having millions of different games and even allows players to create their own games which can be played by others, raising concerns regarding safety and toxicity.
Here are some key factors:
Cyberbullying:
Players can interact with another players through text and voice chat during their game play, direct messaging in the inbox of Roblox.
Though some words can be filtered, players can say inappropriate things without their words or chat getting flagged.
Kids and teens often experience bullying, harassment and threats of getting their address leaked. It is quite common for players to suggest suicide among younger kids and often threaten to kill them if they don’t ‘let them win.’
Predatory behaviours are quite common with players who have female avatars, they are often harassed and followed in the game while being called inappropriate names and asked to do sexual acts with their characters.
The anonymity makes it hard to identify whether the other player is a teen or an older adult preying on younger children. The dangers of soliciting personal details from discord tag so they can chat more freely, and video call cannot be underestimated.
Sexually Explicit Games:
Games with sexual or explicit content are easily accessible. Games such as dating games, explicit roleplays, night clubs which include voice chats are popular and are often on top pages with explicit images that are used for clickbait.
Those games are not age restricted, moderated and are quite accessible to younger kids.
Within games there are sexually explicit dialogue, grooming behaviours and predatory interactions between other players, often minors.
Some of those games encourage players to engage in relationships and social dynamics which are dangerous to younger children as the anonymity of the username does not identify if the other player is actually who they say they are.
Many games can appear innocent when playing, however in some cases it has been reported that there is hidden content. A game can have the player click on a red ball which then takes them to an external explicit website or pop up an inappropriate photo.
How will Roblox deal with these issues:
Roblox is taking approaches to address safety issues. For example: Safeguard Children Online will block players under 13 from directed messaging other players on Roblox messaging platforms.
Roblox also requires evidence of an ID to prove players are over 16 for those wanting to enable voice chats within the games. Roblox has tightened up the chat filter where players can now get banned for many days when detected saying inappropriate things and bullying.
After more than three strikes, the accounts can be banned permanently. All these guidelines can be applied through Roblox account settings by parents who are encouraged to make sure their child is playing safely and happily.