What are Roblox's new parental controls and how will they affect users?

Children's gaming and creation platform Roblox is tightening its parental controls as part of an overhaul of its online safety after being described as an "X-rated paedophile hellscape".

The company said the “major update” to its parental and safety systems would help parents manage their child's activity on the app.

Roblox, an online gaming platform where users can create their own games, is used by hundreds of millions of users every month - the majority of them under 16.

There are chatrooms available for users, and while the platform currently offers parental controls, there are no age restrictions.

The new changes are being introduced to address parents' concerns around safety, engagement and communication on the platform. What are these updates and what will they mean for players and their parents?

What is changing for young users?

The platform will no longer allow those under the age of 13 to directly message others on Roblox outside of games or experiences; they will only be able to send public broadcast messages within games and experiences.

Content will also be classified as one of four labels (see below) with certain content restricted to older players.

How much control will parents have?

Parents will now be able to monitor their child’s activity remotely using their own linked account. They will also be able to adjust controls and view their child’s screen time for the previous week, set time limits and view friend lists.

How will parents know what content is safe?

The company is ditching age based classifications in favour of four description labels, that Roblox said would make it easier for parents to better understand if the content is suited to their child.

The new content labels describe the level of mature themes including violence, humour, fear and strong language that appear within an experience.

The four labels are:

• minimal

• mild

• moderate

• restricted

Users under the age of nine will only be able to access minimal and mild-rated experiences while under 13s will not be able to search or play any experience which has not been given a content label.

Restricted-level content would be blocked until a user was at least 17 and had verified their age with Roblox.

"Labelling experiences based purely on age does not take into account the diverse expectations different families have, so today we’re launching simplified descriptions of the types of content available," Matt Kaufman, Roblox’s chief safety officer, said.

“Children develop on different timelines, and from both our research and external research, we know that parents have different comfort levels regarding the type of content their child engages with," Mr Kaufman said.

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Why have these changes been brought in?

The company has been heavily criticised, both in the UK and in the US, for not protecting its users.

In a report published in October, US investment firm Hindenburg Research slammed the gaming tech company.

“Our in-game research revealed an X-rated paedophile hellscape, exposing children to grooming, pornography, violent content and extremely abusive speech," the firm's research found.

Roblox rejected the claims made in the Hindenburg report, saying “safety and civility have been foundational” to the company since its inception.

In light of the report, technology secretary Peter Kyle told the Commons in October that Ofcom would take action.

He said Ofcom would be informing the US-based gaming platform of the steps it needed to take to ensure users were protected.

At the time, a Roblox spokesperson said: “Safety and civility have been foundational to Roblox since our inception

nearly two decades ago, and we have invested heavily throughout our history in our trust and safety efforts. Today, 10% of full-time employees and thousands of contractors are focused exclusively on trust and safety.

“Every day, tens of millions of people of all ages have a safe and positive experience on Roblox, abiding by our community standards.

“The safety of our community, particularly younger members of our community, is our highest priority, and we have a robust set of proactive and preventative safety measures designed to catch and prevent malicious or harmful activity on our platform.

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