Risks To Children Playing Roblox 'Deeply Disturbing,' Say Researchers (theguardian.com) 31
A new investigation reveals that children as young as five can easily access inappropriate content and interact unsupervised with adults on Roblox, despite the platform's child-friendly image and recent safety updates. The Guardian reports: Describing itself as "the ultimate virtual universe," Roblox features millions of games and interactive environments, known collectively as "experiences." Some of the content is developed by Roblox, but much of it is user-generated. In 2024, the platform had more than 85 million daily active users, an estimated 40% of whom are under 13. While the company said it "deeply sympathized" with parents whose children came to harm on the platform, it said "tens of millions of people have a positive, enriching and safe experience on Roblox every day."
However, in an investigation shared with the Guardian, the digital-behavior experts Revealing Reality discovered "something deeply disturbing ... a troubling disconnect between Roblox's child-friendly appearance and the reality of what children experience on the platform." [...] Despite new tools launched last week aimed at giving parents more control over their children's accounts, the researchers concluded: "Safety controls that exist are limited in their effectiveness and there are still significant risks for children on the platform."
However, in an investigation shared with the Guardian, the digital-behavior experts Revealing Reality discovered "something deeply disturbing ... a troubling disconnect between Roblox's child-friendly appearance and the reality of what children experience on the platform." [...] Despite new tools launched last week aimed at giving parents more control over their children's accounts, the researchers concluded: "Safety controls that exist are limited in their effectiveness and there are still significant risks for children on the platform."
kids as young as 5 playing... (Score:5, Insightful)
that would be the parents fault.
yes there is crap on Roblox....
but letting a kid that is 5 use it?
my daughter wasn't allowed till she was 10;
not allowed to voice chat;
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yep. Using a computer as a babysitter is bad parenting. If your child isn't old enough to do something unsupervised... they shouldn't be doing it unsupervised.
There's plenty you can get a kid to do to occupy them without requiring the same level of vigilance as something with an Internet connection. The world existed prior to the Internet, after all.
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Re:kids as young as 5 playing... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Where do you live that all those things are so cheap?
Buying tinkering materials is usually horrible expensive.
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- Low quality markers or decent crayons are a few bucks for a rainbow pack. No need for fancy art supplies for young kids' scribbling, and let's be honest, they're going to leave the markers uncapped unless you watch them like a hawk.
- Likewise, crappy tape and glue are a few bucks each. They're not building stuff to last forever.
- Scissors a
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Oddly, I never played with the oversized bricks as a kid, I went straight to regular Lego. I was 5 or 6 when I started playing with that.
Of course, I'm old, and parents used to be able to afford Lego without taking out a second mortgage on the family home. It was a simpler product, so you used more imagination instead of making exactly what was pictured on the box. That was the way it was, and we liked it.
Re: kids as young as 5 playing... (Score:3)
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Here we go again. No the point of childhoold is to mature into an adult and learn a long the way about how the world works. The point of society to create safety and security and that should include safety for children.
Children need to interact with the world, not be hidden away an excluded, and we should expect, actually insist, as parents that the large society enables parents to allow children to interact in age appropriate ways.
Supervision does not do it, when someone can IM them a dick pick or whatev
More Proof that Video Games Cause School Shootings (Score:5, Informative)
The "adult" and "strongly sexually suggestive" content is a club, with a dance floor, that also has a connected hotel. You can wander into the hotel and *gasp* the hotel rooms have beds. There is nothing actually suggestive. The "revealing clothing" is a bikini on a flat chested avatar. While Roblox isn't perfect, and you definitely should monitor what your child is doing, this gotcha is more like a DUH.
Re: More Proof that Video Games Cause School Shoot (Score:2)
To whomever moderated my comment "Troll", did the title really need a sarcasm tag for you to understand it?
And in the real world... (Score:5, Insightful)
... priests, nuns and other "trusted figures" (male _and_ female) are a lot more of a danger to your children. With Roblox, they can simply walk away. Of course, you, as a parent, need to teach them that. Do not expect technology to do your job.
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... priests, nuns and other "trusted figures" (male _and_ female) are a lot more of a danger to your children. With Roblox, they can simply walk away. Of course, you, as a parent, need to teach them that. Do not expect technology to do your job.
Not that I disagree with your point (nor does Father Saville) but I think the issue with many of these games is that they've been turned into thinly veiled forms of gambling (I.E. loot boxes) or tactics similar to gambling are being used to encourage children to spend money, sometimes without their parent's knowledge. It's this kind of thing that is most concerning as the gamification encourages children to be less honest with their parents or adults about it.
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That is a separate problem. And that is one for regulation to fix. Sill need to educate you children about how that worls, but not all of them will understand it.
I remember (Score:2)
The Guardian is a bog roll tabloid. (Score:1)
Since when do functioning adults think tabloid drivel belongs on Slashdot?
Re: The Guardian is a bog roll tabloid. (Score:2)
Whoa! You mean I could be playing this game right now instead of reading this thread?
Mining for Scandal (Score:5, Insightful)
So I looked at their video clip of what they consider "harmful" to the public snowflake.
Personally, I thought the graphics were so crappy I couldn't even figure out what was going on. The avatars, such as they are, are barely recognizable as human and in fact aren't in many cases. Pixelated blobs moving around.
Back in the day they worked in suggestive themes and dirty jokes into Bugs Bunny cartoons. This is nothing compared to that, and that was back in the 50s and 60s.
This is no more than an effort to generate clickbait.
Lego (Score:2)
We all know that the Roblox characters models are extremely ugly rip-offs of the Lego minifigure, but it's a bit extreme to call them "deeply disturbing" for children.
isolated experiences (Score:1)
For online games aimed at very young kids, the "starter-account default" should be that you you play in a "sandbox" that only staff/moderators and people your parents (or for school/group "experiences," the group's sponsor) approve of can get into.
If I have a 10 year old and I'm just getting them started with Roblox or something similar, I want to know that I will individually approve everyone they get to interact with.
As they grow older and more experienced, I can give them more freedoms, such as the abili
Reminds me of the Onion article (Score:2)
It Almost Weirder That Grown Man On Roblox Isn’t Grooming Children [theonion.com]
Ban Roblox (Score:1)
trolls hacked in? (Score:1)
"Cindy, Kitty Cat in the dryer and turn it on."
It's a feature (Score:2)
Grooming is just one of the many "experiences" on Roblox