Roblox Requires Age Checks for Communication, Ushering in New Safety Standard
20 comments
·November 19, 2025xeonmc
Roblox calling themselves the industry gold standard in online safety is about as ridiculous as Riot Games calling themselves the beacon of technical excellence in game development.
sanex
I've been saying we need a separate Internet for kids. Not just because of pedos, but because young adults don't have the same level of respect and filters that one should have when dealing with kids and it's exposing them to behavior they shouldn't. This is a great step.
JumpCrisscross
> we need a separate Internet for kids
Good start. But this still leaves them at the mercy of these tech companies.
Kids—especially pre-teens—should not have social media. There is just way too much evidence that this has harmed and is harming an increasingly class-segregated generation.
Gas stations are careful about selling cigarettes to kids. We need these developers to have even a shadow of that concern.
bilegeek
Problem is some kids don't have alternatives to online. Just recently on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45945114
Not saying you're wrong, but it's more complicated than you think in many cases. The rot goes deep into society as a whole, which tech corpos then exploit.
Aloisius
Today: Social media is harming our kids, ban it!
30 years ago: Video games are harming our kids, ban it!
60 years ago: Rock and roll is harming our kids, ban it!
There is little evidence to support social media causes harm. Even correlations are weak. As a large study on the subject put it, the association of well-being with regularly eating potatoes was nearly as negative as the association with [social media] use.
This looks like yet another moral panic.
hollerith
>the association of well-being with regularly eating potatoes was nearly as negative as the association with [social media] use.
Maybe regularly eating potatoes is a lot worse for a person that most of us currently realize. (They do have an extremely high glycemic index and high levels of oxalic acid.)
loloquwowndueo
Dude no, sorry, those things have nothing on Roblox, it’s the most toxic damaging thing ever.
rjdj377dhabsn
No, we don't. You need to teach your kids the skills to deal with the realities of the modern world before giving them unrestricted access to the internet.
kachapopopow
while yes, they probably should, however, it wouldn't protect them from pedos.
Natsu
We had AOL back in the day, but...
cohogndaaz
[dead]
crtasm
So besides scanning your child's face they also want access to their phone contacts.
chris_wot
You can thank the Australian government for this change in direction.
dbg31415
Remember, Roblox is toxic and exploits young people.
- Roblox Isn't a Game | Psychology Today // https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/video-game-health/20...
- Investigation: How Roblox Is Exploiting Young Game Developers - YouTube // https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gXlauRB1EQ
- Roblox Pressured Us to Delete Our Video. So We Dug Deeper. - YouTube // https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTMF6xEiAaY
Roblox is Darker Than You Think (ft. Ruben Sim) - YouTube // https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av03P5D11PQ&t=55s
gambiting
Does that help with any of this?
https://hindenburgresearch.com/roblox/
"Following years of scandals, we performed our own checks to see if the platform had cleaned up its act. As a test, we attempted to set up an account under the name ‘Jeffrey Epstein’…only to see the name was taken, along with 900+ variations. Many were Jeffrey Epstein fan accounts, including “JeffEpsteinSupporter” which had earned multiple badges for spending time in kid’s games. Other Jeff Epstein accounts had the usernames “@igruum_minors” [I groom minors], and “@RavpeTinyK1dsJE” [rape tiny kids]. We attempted to set up a Roblox account under the name of another notorious pedophile to see if Roblox had any up-front pedophile screening: Earl Brian Bradley was indicted on 471 charges of molesting, raping and exploiting 103 children. The username was taken, along with multiple variants like earlbrianbradley69. After we found a username, we listed our age as “under 13” to see if children are being exposed to adult content. By merely plugging ‘adult’ into the Roblox search bar, we found a group called “Adult Studios” with 3,334 members openly trading child pornography and soliciting sexual acts from minors. We tracked some of the members of “Adult Studios” and easily found 38 Roblox groups – one with 103,000 members – openly soliciting sexual favors and trading child pornography."
BoredPositron
No but look how hard they try and now they have a feature they can wiggle around with if something bad happens. It's theater as always with stuff like this. There is just no way of doing it without real inconvenience for every user. Inconvenience really hurts the bottom line...
miohtama
Fort Gayers want their limelight back
DaSHacka
What a load of nothingburger. There's so much Roblox has done wrong, and they choose to focus on teenagers playing the game with edgy usernames?
As the kids would say, "they wouldn't survive 5 minutes in a COD lobby"
cohogndaaz
[dead]
The most impressive thing about Roblox is how many predatory parties they have managed to pack into one children's platform. The company itself with its microtransactions, cash hungry creators with lowest common denominator and/or sexualized content, creepy adults behaving badly, probably some hostile foreign governments in all likelihood. Maybe add in a 4chan integration next just to cover a wider spectrum of villainy.