Games, risk; PlayStation and schools publish safety guides: what is Roblox

Platform encourages play, creation, learning – but it is already being researched and processed. Protecting children is a priority.

O Roblox has become very popular in recent times. It’s a online platform that encourages children and adolescents (and not only) to play, create, learn and explore.

Gather millions of games and 3D experiences, created by users themselves – there are young Portuguese creators on the platform.

It combines traditional genres (action, adventure or sport) with interactive social spaces where players can play together and interact, chat with each other.

It also calls on the creativity, to problem solving, while presenting itself as an educational platform.

It was an almost unknown space but it became one of the largest video game platforms.

The dangers

But there are also dangers. With more and more warnings about the risk to children.

At the beginning of this year, the platform itself started to have a mandatory age verification system for chatting. To reinforce children’s safety.

As schools have been paying attention. ZAP is aware that there are schools sending recommendations to parents or other guardians about Roblox.

Schools warn that, if used without supervision, the platform can be a “stage” for conversations with strangers (precisely not chat), inappropriate content, the youngest can do shopping easily, or are exposed to language or inappropriate behaviors.

Itself published a safety and parental controls guide about Roblox, where it leaves several rules, whether general or divided by age group. For example, group chat is only available to users over 13 years old.

It also warns that, among the wide variety of experiences on the platform – including user-created content – ​​some of this content may not be suitable for all ages. There are experiments with “heavy violence, heavy realistic blood”among others.

An independent programmer, who creates games for Roblox (who did not reveal his name), leaves the notice on: Parents must monitor their children 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – if they can’t, “then nor should they be allowed to play.”

Processes

Roblox has been the target of court proceedingsin recent times.

In February, and after many complaints from parents and users, authorities in the Netherlands began an investigation.

They question the business practices, which can encourage impulsive purchases; and leave a warning about the presence of adults – pretending to be children – to talk to children or teenagers.

The fear of sexual predators was the reason that led to the lawsuit filed by the attorney general of Louisiana, in the USA.

Liz Murrill has identified a “pattern of predatory activity” related to Roblox – they are arrest “sexual predators every week”who find children on the platform and then “start conversations with the children, groom them, sexually exploit them and harm them”, warned the attorney general.