Roblox to release new parental controls following damning report

Roblox is planning to introduce new safety features for child accounts starting next month. This decision comes after a troubling report suggested that the platform has serious issues with child and sexual exploitation.

According to IGN, Roblox has reached out to parents through email to inform them about these upcoming changes. One major update is that parents will now be able to link their accounts with their children’s. This will allow them to monitor their child’s activities, see who their friends are, and adjust parental controls more easily.

Previously, parents could secure their child’s account with a PIN that ideally their kids wouldn’t know. However, this will no longer be an option. Parents will now need to create their own accounts, which should make it harder for kids to modify settings without permission.

Additionally, Roblox is changing the default settings for different age groups. For instance, kids under 13 will need parental consent to use certain chat features. Those under 9 will need permission to access any content rated “Moderate” or higher. This change might be connected to a new Party feature that allows friends to chat via text or voice, but only for users aged 13 and up.

In an email, Roblox emphasized its commitment to child safety, stating, “Since day one, Roblox has been committed to building safety features and tools into the design of our products. We will always continue to explore different ways to update our parental controls to make them even more useful for parents.”

This decision follows a report from Hindenburg Research, which claimed earlier this month that Roblox has been misleading about its user statistics. The report accused the platform of failing to adequately address child safety issues and stated, “Roblox is compromising child safety in order to report growth to investors.” It described the platform as a dangerous environment where children are exposed to grooming, pornography, violent content, and abusive language.

Roblox denied these claims, arguing that the report is “misleading” and that it takes any inappropriate content or behavior on its platform very seriously. This pushback comes despite previous reports, including one from Bloomberg, where Roblox employees expressed concerns about the platform’s safety for children, along with ongoing lawsuits related to these issues.