Roblox is making some potentially major changes that will limit what pre-teens can access and give parents more control over what their kids do on the platform, according to an email sent by the company and shared with The Verge. The changes follow recent reports highlighting how Roblox has failed to protect children.
In July, for example, Bloomberg published a big report about predators on the platform. Turkey blocked access to Roblox in August, saying it was a necessary measure to protect its children. (Roblox said this week that it would open an office in the country if access was restored.) Earlier this month, a popular financial newsletter accused Roblox of enabling child abuse and the investment firm Hindenburg Research alleged that its “in-game research revealed an X-rated pedophile hellscape.”
As part of the changes, which Bloomberg initially reported on, users younger than 13 will have to get parent permission to access “certain chat features” while users that are younger than 9 will need their parents’ permission to play experiences that have a “moderate” content label. (That label means the experience may contain things like moderate violence or crude humor.) The company had already announced that it will be switching from “experience guidelines,” which rates experiences for specific ages, over to the new content label system this fall.
Roblox is also adding a new type of account that will let parents manage their kids on the platform. With the new parent accounts, parents can link their account to their child’s so they can update parental controls and access insights about their child’s Roblox usage, such as daily screen time and their Roblox friends. However, alongside these changes, Roblox won’t let parents set a PIN to make changes to an account, or use account restrictions to block a kid’s account from sending in-game chats or limit a kid’s account to only accessing experiences designed “for all ages.”
“The updates that were shared via email are part of Roblox’s commitment to making the platform one of the safest online environments for our users, particularly the youngest users,” Roblox’s Juliet Chaitin-Lefcourt tells The Verge. “We’re excited to share more information next month.”
Here is Roblox’s full email:
New parental controls and insights are coming soon
Dear parent,
We’ve been working on a series of important changes that we’ll be making to your child’s account, ____________, next month.
About Roblox accounts with parent privileges
Next month, we’re changing the way parents manage their child’s experience on Roblox by introducing Roblox accounts with parent privileges. After linking your account to your child’s, parents can view and update parental controls for their child all from their own device. Parents also get access to insights about their child’s Roblox usage, such as their daily screen time and on-platform friends.
Given these changes, starting next month, parents will no longer be able to set a parent PIN, use Account Restrictions, or receive account-related notifications to their parental email. Instead, you will need to use an account with parent privileges. Existing verified parental emails on child accounts will continue to be used for account recovery. Any settings previously set using a parent PIN will not change, but you will need an account with parent privileges to make updates going forward.
As always, if users are interested in an added layer of security on their account, you can set up 2-factor authentication.
Updated content maturity settings
As we shared with the community in July, to help provide parents and users more clarity into the types of content available on Roblox, we’ll soon begin labeling experiences based on the type of content users can expect in an experience, rather than by age. Experience Guidelines will be renamed Content Labels, and you’ll be able to set limits on the type of content accessible to your child through the content maturity setting in parental controls.
New default settings for users under the age of 13
As part of Roblox’s commitment to safety, we are also updating certain default settings for our youngest users. Starting next month, users under the age of 13 will need parent permission to access certain chat features. Users under the age of 9 will also need parent permission to access experiences with content maturity “Moderate,” which may contain things like moderate violence or moderate crude humor.
Your child’s settings will be updated when they reach certain ages, if you and your child haven’t previously made changes to them. You and your child will be notified of these updates in advance.
We will share more information on these setting updates when the changes go into effect next month.
Next steps
To continue receiving notifications about your child’s account related to spending or other important activity, you’ll need to set up a Roblox account with parent privileges and link to your child’s account. When these changes take effect, your child will receive a notification inviting them to add a linked parent account, and we’ll send you an email with instructions.
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.
Roblox
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