Roblox’s New Feature Could Put User’s Safety in Jeopardy
By Movieguide® Contributor
Roblox, a video game platform, has launched a “Connect” feature that will allow anyone who plays the game to chat through a voice call.
This means that children, teens, young adults and grown adults can chat, potentially connecting young people with predators.
Roblox defines this new component as “an experience where you can call a friend and have a conversation as your avatars, together in a shared immersive space. From a developer’s perspective, it is a non-copylocked experience that demonstrates one way of consuming the call-related methods and events of SocialService and PlayerViewService.”
However, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation warns, “Voice chats are a known method predators use for grooming – as it is near impossible to monitor them.”
“There have been multiple cases of predators using Roblox to sexually exploit, abuse, even kidnap, children. Yet instead of prioritizing greater measures to safeguard kids, the company irresponsibly chose to release a feature that may very well provide predators with yet another way to reach potential victims,” Lina Nealon, Vice President and Director of Corporate Advocacy fro NCOSE, stated.
“Roblox must immediately terminate the ability for minors to use Roblox Connect until the company creates stringent safeguards across the entire platform and can demonstrate an ability to monitor voice chats for grooming,” she added. “Omegle – an online chat site that facilitated conversations between children and adults – just shut down in large part due to children being sexually exploited on the platform.”
“Given that the majority of Roblox’s user base is comprised of kids under age 16, the company should be the gold standard for child online safety,” Nealon concluded.
In October of this year, a young girl from New Jersey was kidnapped by a man that she met while playing online games, including Roblox.
The girl was found 130 miles from where she lived.
Roblox released a statement on the incident, saying, “We work tirelessly to prevent grooming on our platform and have a team of thousands of moderators who enforce a strict set of community standards on Roblox, including zero tolerance for sexual content of any kind. We also have a number of dedicated features designed to keep kids safe including filtering text chat on the platform to block inappropriate content or personal information and offering parental controls and features to limit or turn off chat. Users can also mute or block players that they come across in games and report inappropriate content or behavior using our Report Abuse system.”
Despite Roblox’s efforts to keep kids safe, it doesn’t appear to be enough, as the Connect feature allows people of any age to voice chat.
Movieguide® previously reported:
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) recently released its 2023 ‘Dirty Dozen’ list.
“The Dirty Dozen List is an annual campaign calling out twelve mainstream entities for facilitating or profiting from sexual abuse and exploitation,” the NCOSE explained.
Additionally, the Dirty Dozen List is an activism tool enabling large-scale change. The list provides tangible steps that can be taken to hold companies accountable such as emailing legislators, signing petitions to corporate executives, and pre-crafted social media messages…
“Roblox isn’t all fun and games. Among the blocks and buildings, kids may be exposed to predators and inappropriate content.”
- Content: +1Share:
- Content: +1