Roblox, one of the world's most popular gaming platforms, has faced numerous accusations of failing to safeguard children from potential predators. Last summer, Turkey banned Roblox due to concerns over child exploitation. In response, The Roblox Corporation has unveiled plans to implement new restrictions aimed at preventing illegal exploitation, particularly targeting its youngest users.
As detailed on Roblox's official developer forum, children under the age of 13 will no longer have access to unrated experiences created within the platform. Additionally, only users aged 13 and older will be permitted to engage in social hangouts and free-form user-creation experiences. Whether these measures will be sufficient to appease critics and address the issue of children being targeted by predators remains to be seen, depending on the effectiveness of these new restrictions.
According to a Bloomberg report earlier this year, The Roblox Corporation reported over 13,000 instances of child exploitation to authorities in 2023, with two dozen individuals arrested for abusing children after making contact through the platform. The company responded by stating that the reported instances did not fully reflect the scale of the issue relative to the platform's vast user base. Roblox also highlighted its collaboration with law enforcement to combat illegal activities on the platform.
The new restrictions for players under 13 will take effect on December 3. Currently, Roblox leaves the rating of restricted content to users, but the company plans to integrate rating into the process of publishing new experiences in the future.
Source link: https://www.gamespot.com
