From next month it will start enforcing facial age estimation to allow children to chat with strangers only if they are in their broad age group.
Roblox compared its new system to school cohorts such as elementary, middle school and high school. It will be introduced first in Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands, where children will be blocked from privately chatting with adults they do not know in real life from next month, and in the rest of the world in early January.
Users will be placed into the following groups: under nine, nine to 12, 13 to 15, 16 to 17, 18 to 20, or 21 and over. Children will be able to chat only with others in their age group and similar ones. For example, a child with an estimated age of 12 will be able to chat only with under-16s. Images and video used for the checks would not be stored, Roblox said.
Totally sounds like it will only stops kids talking to adults but not adults talking to kids. The creeps already try to get their victims to communicate off-platform using unmoderated services. Unless this blocks the kids’ from seeing the adults’ messages, the adults trying to fuck with kids could just tell them to use a different messenger.
Fuck yeah! I can finally enjoy my Roblox without being harassed by children.
It’s funny how we can just browbeat people into doing what we want.
Rules and laws don’t matter.
Are you mad that kids can’t talk to you in Roblox anymore, or that nothing is being done legally about all the pedos in the game? 🤨
I don’t allow my kids to play it. It sucks, but the reality is the game has been captured by pedos. I saw too many questionable things when I watched them play. Invariably they will be unsupervised at some point, even for brief periods, so it is not worth the risk.
I came back to Roblox because I was tasked to spy on my brother. Seen shit, reported shit. To be fair, it was probably teens, judging by the behavior, but I really hate Roblox as a company.
How are they talking to people? My kid either hasn’t figured it out or doesn’t give a shit. But he doesn’t really talk except for IRL friends on discord.
I think that if a kid can’t read then they are generally safe from the worst of grooming honestly.
I mean, like I said, there were a lot of inappropriate situations I witnessed which made me uncomfortable besides just what was said in chat.
This is why I don’t let my kids play. It wasn’t just the chat.
Also, once a kiddo hits 13 they can voice chat. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what happens next.
For me, personally, it is a hard no. If you supervise your children constantly then it is probably somewhat safe… That is not really reassuring is it?
From next month it will start enforcing facial age estimation to allow children to chat with strangers only if they are in their broad age group.
This is going to backfire spectacularly, what idiots.
Gonna be funny when they get hacked and all that info leaks.
Right on its face, is it even legal to collect head shots of minors? I know US privacy laws are a joke but there’s usually some carve outs that protect minors.
It’s illegal to collect ANY data from children under 13. Facial scans are WAY worse than the anonymized use stats those laws were put in place to block
It’s illegal to collect ANY data from children under 13.
Really?
Can’t protect them too much, though. Otherwise, how would the pedo-in-chief and his ilk get a fresh crop of sex slaves?
No, no. It makes perfect sense from an investment standpoint. Their actual target audience would love to be able to pay for access to that catalog.
Ais gonna be like you look mature for your age putting ppl higher or lower
See, what I figured out is that I don’t have to let my son play Roblox. Sure, he might be the “weird” one who’s dad doesn’t let him. But he was going to be “weird” anyway. That’s just how our lives work.
Plus you have AuADHD, having it myself, it makes you vulnerable to predators in ways you can’t understand yet.
We play by the same rule, everyone is weird, no judgement for immutable characteristics. Everyone has challenges, life is already hard, no reason to make it harder for someone.
Hey there’s maybe tens of us! Hello fellow reasonable parent!
FINALLY a good parent!
Please have more babies!
I would happily have more babies as children are fun.
Unfortunately that requires a partner who values intelligence, child development, learning and desires children. When I find such a unicorn I’ll make as many babies as I can reasonably raise (probably like 2 or three more maximum)
Problem: the game is getting a notoriety for being infested by pedophiles and the developers are actively protecting them.
Solution: send your photographs to the game infested by pedophiles to prove you are a real child!
Fucking. Incredible. If this was written in a manuscript, it would be tossed for being too cartoonishly unrealistic.
Do you have a better idea?
Don’t let users talk unless they can prove they’re over 18.
This also has the same drawback as dictating ‘fake’ information on the internet.
Kids are going to think that whoever they’re talking to isn’t some old perv because ‘the verification process said so.’
It’ll make grooming and gaining their trust a lot easier.
Roblox is making absolute bank. They have the resources to actually solve this if they wanted. They just believe the inevitable slap on the wrist will cost them less than they stand to make in the meantime.
Absolutely! Multiple, in fact. In order of preference:
- Shut down the game, dissolve the company, and donate all remaining funds to a women’s shelter.
- Prosecute groomers instead of banning and threatening the people who are trying to stop the fuckers and crying about vigilantism even when the proper reporting channels are used.
- Use AI for a beneficial purpose at least one goddamn time. Scan the text and voice communications (it’s a public game, there is no expectation of privacy), flag suspicious exchanges for human review, then ban and report groomers.
Hiring moderators would be a good option too
With what money? They only made $1.3 billion this quarter! Won’t anyone think of the shareholders?!
Honestly, getting rid of any chat (voice/text) and DM features would would help. I don’t think kids should completely lose online gaming, just make it almost impossible to communicate with anyone on said game. I played a shit ton of Mario Kart and Splatoon online as a kid, but neither of those games offer personal messages/chat features (unless you set them up via app), so I imagine grooming would be almost impossible.
I don’t want to take Roblox away from kids, as I understand how fun it was growing up, especially if you can’t afford a console/games at home. But chat has to be either heavily moderated, or just entirely removed imo.
Pretty sure Club Penguin only let you choose from a predetermined list of ready phrases, it worked well afaik. Roblox could do that, but something something engagement
Them having an office large enough to moderate in-game communications, on every popular language? They have some billions to spare. Serving kids requires a lot of work they have neglected for a very long time.
Facebook was a vehicle for hateful, genocidal messages in Myanmar, and they seemingly got of the hook having no person understanding local language on the market they occupied.
If Roblox primarily targets kids, they can’t go without agressive moderation, psy-help on demand, things one would find obvious, but these are never required, not to say it’s not that sexy as getting profits and cutting corners.
I don’t know if their business model would be viable if they started things right from the beginning, but it would be more stressful to them to finally start doing something about that.
Emote only chat
Recognized as [teen]
Relevant username
I wouldn’t be complaining about this, except I am because Roblox is operated by pedos.
Something extreme measures such as face recognition has to be taken to ensure problems like this won’t happen again. However, though, pedophiles having access to data storage containing such verifications can go so wrong on so many levels.
So heres what they should do:
Fire and prosecute all of the pedos. Replace the pedos with trustworthy people to operate Roblox. Then go through verifying.
Option 2…shut down roblox. It doesn’t NEED to exist.
I like this option best, tbh.
I don’t get the appeal, really. It’s just a lego-looking ripoff where the arms are fucking huge and everything. The things that get chosen to be popular, says a lot about people’s collective tastes sometimes.
- is free to play
- runs on potato computers
- runs on potato phones
- easy to play with friends
- has new
gamesexperiences every day
I think the 2 last points are what really end up making it such a success with kids - low attrition to start and lots of different games in one place. It takes 2 clicks to go from a parkour race to a pet care sim.
When you’re targeting kids, your graphics should be easy to understand. Bright colors, simple shapes, it’s enough. If you think about it, those graphics wouldn’t be too different from what a kid can usually draw.
The other big thing is it lowers the barrier to entry of making games.
“Guess we arent allowed internet privacy after all everybody. Dont worry, its for the children.”
God forbid they just shut down the chat function??? Ffs
That would be stupid, many games rely on chat and aren’t exclusively played by children
You are correct, Pedophiles also play.
and? Why do you want to enable pedos?
This argument is just silly.
>Uses an iOS device
>Wants to be able to install third-party apps
>“Why do you want to be able to allow viruses?”
This isn’t about sideloading. This is about adults mingling with children on Roblox. Interesting how you miss the point so thoroughly.
If this isn’t bait, congrats, you just missed the entire point of the analogy.
While we’re at it, let’s remove commenting and posting from Lemmy for people that aren’t administrators.
If Lemmy was a child’s game and it was full of pedophiles actively grooming them then yes we would need to shut it down. Your analogy misses the point completely.
We’re are dealing with a child’s game where pedophiles are actively going after youth right now as we type.
They should be shutdown and charges pressed against the developers for allowing this. This is the only way forward at this point.
Your point about taking away chat ruining the game is also nonsensical. Only some RP would be affected and could be gotten around easily with a dialogue tree.
Word games? Multiplayer competitive games?
It’s not just a roleplaying game.
Despite being pretty important to the gameplay, should the developers of other games primarily played by underaged people be forced to ban chat? Like other bigger multiplayer games like Fortnite, Among Us, Valorant, CSGO, etc.
Removed by mod
Considering your own argument length, I don’t think he’d need to invest more energy to make a more compelling one to counter yours.
So either elaborate yours, or go look at at the concept of “Bullshit‑asymmetry principle” (and associated concepts) when you’ll have time.
Removed by mod
after string of lawsuits.
This. Imagine being a company who suddenly has to do the right thing simply because they can’t afford the “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas” approach any more.
Litigation may be an awful substitute for regulation, but at least its having some positive effect here.
Shame about the way they’re doing it, though. It’s a wet dream for politicians and activists in favour of age verification, and for the hackers who’ll inevitability get their hands on all of it.
I don’t know if I would call mandatory facial recognition for children online “the right thing.”
I would say it is the parent’s responsibility to know what their child is doing and what platforms their child is using. If something horrible should happen, my first finger to point at would be the parents not doing anything to prevent it, usually out of negligence, not the Roblox company. A company can only do so much before they begin to assume control of responsibilities a parent has, and I would prefer governments and businesses have as little control over raising children as possible.
This is why many parents used to restrict children’s access to the internet to only when the parent can directly monitor it until they were an adult. Sometimes a “family computer” in a common room with the screen plainly visible was the one a child could use. Sadly, it appears this is no longer the case, and more and more parents are ignorant of what their children do.
If someone’s dog eats all the pills they left out on the counter and dies, it isn’t the fault of the dog and it isn’t the fault of the medical company that made the pills, its the fault of the owner for being negligent by not watching the dog and leaving the pills out. This is my opinion.
I don’t know if I would call mandatory facial recognition for children online “the right thing.”
I don’t think so either, which is why I didn’t say it. You skipped my final paragraph.
By “right thing”, I was referring to doing anything, which appears to be more than they’ve tried so far.
The parental responsibility argument was probably valid when there was 1-2 standard computers in a home and getting online was a Whole Thing in itself. Now we have supercomputers in our pockets that are permanently online. It’s a whole lot harder than a simple “parents should take responsibility” one-liner.
I’m not saying they bear no responsibility, but to hand wave that as the answer is not an answer.
Also: Thinking of myself at that age, though public internet didn’t exist until I was almost an adult, I know I’d have found ways around things. A digital equivalent to slipping out of your window to see friends or hiding your Brussels sprouts in a pocket.
The technical education required to correctly protect, monitor and configure the necessary hardware and software is unreasonable for the vast majority of people.
Though you could probably find a kid who’ll happily show you how to do it all…
I don’t agree. I think that the responsibilty a parent has to keep their child safe and teach them how to navigate reality has always been hard.
Parents in the 90s probably had as hard of a time with smartphones as parents do now with smartphones. When smartphones were brand new I remember many parents did not allow their children to have them at all, if the child even had a mobile phone. Not because they don’t love their child, but because they do. They want to protect them from having access to material children shouldn’t have. But children are smart, and they find a way around it with the iPod Touch or PSP that their friend has or other means. But in those cases the parents can say they did everything they could to protect their child.
The most fault obviously lies with the nefarious person grossly mistreating children. If they didn’t exist at all, none of this would even be necessary. Unfortunately, that cannot ever happen, because humans still do not know what causes them to be the way they are, or how to prevent it/treat it properly.
Now, Roblox certainly should be doing something about it, but the amount of fault they have in the issue is the least among other parties. But using mandatory facial recognition for that? I think that is way too far. I don’t see why DMs aren’t monitored. Seems like the perfect use case for AI: have an LLM scan DMs as they are sent and "flag"messages of potential suspicion for a human to then read the DM chain for context to verify. Or just remove messaging from the platform altogether.
Not even “can’t afford”. They’re rolling in money. They merely made the calculation that paying lip service to the problem (and farming their user base for even more data to leverage, count on it) could cost less than future lawsuits.
So, Roblox is shutting down? The entire thing is a child sex crime, so unless they’re shutting down, nothing has changed
By asking them to verify their age via selfie. We live in the worst time line.
Come on, it’s not like anybody can just create a unique selfie of a kid. They’d have to be artists or something. /s
Company profiting from allowing pedos to groom children enacts steps to prevent pedos from grooming children? Like that’s going to happen.
Whatever solution they come up with, I can guarantee that it “accidentally” has a loophole in it.
