However, when the biggest game during the summer vacation implies that children cultivate their own gardens, it is easy to see why parents let their children continue to use the platform. “Perhaps it is because of the graphics, or perhaps it is because of the way it is marketed, [but] There is an assumption that Roblox is made for children, and parents assume that there are large amounts of guarantees, ”explains Rachel Kowert, research psychologist and author whose work focuses on the social impact of video games.
To filter the problematic content, Roblox uses a combination of human moderators and automated systems piloted by artificial intelligence and automatic learning. But researchers have shown several times that these measures can be bypassed, replacing words prohibited by a coded language that automated systems have trouble following. In many proceedings to date, the victims claim that the alleged aggressor has moved Roblox conversations to platforms like Discord or Snapchat, where there is even less surveillance.
When contacted by Wired, a Snap spokesperson said that the company is committed to combating children’s sexual exploitation and that it strives to improve its technology to detect people who violate Snapchat directives.
One of the ways that Roblox aims to prevent people from moving communications to other platforms is trusting trust, a new feature that allows users over 13 years old to have non-filtered conversations with other users they know. Users who checked their age – by sharing a video of themselves which is then scanned by the AI – can add other people aged 13 to 17 without any additional step.
Users over 18 can only become trust connections if they know a younger user in real life, according to Roblox. This is confirmed by scanning a QR code in person or if the adult telephone number appears in the contacts of a user.
But criticism fear that these measures can already be doomed to failure. On Discord, which has started to deploy similar features in recent months, players only took a few days to understand that they could deceive age verification. Using photo mode in Death of deathThey showed the platform an image of the main character, the model of which is the actor Norman Reedus.
In addition to prosecution against Roblox, law enforcement organizations in the United States followed grooming on the platform. In 2024, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that the authorities in the United States had arrested at least two dozen people accused by the police of having kidnapped or abused victims they had met or cared for with Roblox since 2018. The arrests have been continuing since.
In addition to individual predators on the platform, researchers have shown how Nihilist group members such as No Lives Matter, CVLT and 764 – which all work as part of the wider COM network – have repeatedly used Roblox as a place to recruit children, encouraging them to share sexually explicit images and videos, in autumutilation or in extreme cases. Members often do it to gain influence within groups.
The new guarantees, says that the researcher of extremism, Ry Terran, can only do a lot to prevent this. In his opinion, they give “young adolescents more opportunities to discuss, no less”. “Parental commands for adolescents belong to adolescents, not to parents,” says Terran. “But they call these characteristics of” additional security “to move the burden of security to children and parents and far from themselves.”
