Parents concerned Roblox will slip through gaps in online safety crackdown

Parents and experts have said they are concerned the UK’s online safety measures will not be enough to protect children playing on online gaming platform Roblox.

The platform, which allows users to play user-generated games known as “experiences”, has been described as an “all-you-can-eat buffet” for predators and described by campaigners as “one of the worst things that can happen to childhood”. Independent.

Sir Keir Starmer recently announced that under-16s will be banned from social media platforms from spring 2027. He also said the government would impose restrictions to prevent children from livestreaming and prevent strangers from communicating with them online on gaming platforms such as Roblox.

Earlier this month, Roblox introduced Roblox Kids, aimed at users ages five to eight, and Roblox Select, aimed at users ages nine to 15. The accounts were said to include a number of safeguards, including age checks and expanded parental controls.

A recent study by Ofcom found that Roblox reached 61 per cent of 8-14 year olds in the UK within a month, making it the most accessed gaming app for teenagers. But it is also linked to cases of grooming and child abuse. In April, 19-year-old Carlo Tritta was jailed after a “campaign of fear and harassment” against a 14-year-old girl he met on the platform.

Parents and experts told Independent They do not believe these measures are sufficient to protect children both from the addictive nature of experiences on Roblox and from those who meet children and want to harm them.

Susie Masterson, 51, said Roblox initially seemed “harmless” to her son when he created an account a few years ago when he was 9 years old.

But her husband was wary of the user-generated aspect of the platform, so the couple agreed to conduct a series of interviews with him to better understand what he saw there.

He told them with horror that strangers regularly approached him online, asking for inappropriate and sensitive information and trying to lure him to other platforms such as Telegram and Discord.

“He described it as literally being led into a dark alley or a dark corner in space,” he explained. “He said, ‘They wanted me to go here, and I didn’t want to go.’”

Ms Masterson’s son said he had not revealed anything alarming to a stranger online but that the experiences had left him “uncomfortable”.

After conversations about the risks of the platform, he decided to stop playing voluntarily. Since then, Ms Masterson says she has seen her friend’s children easily bypass age checks and fall victim to scams where their Robux (Roblox’s internal currency) is stolen on the platform.

Roblox said independent testing by its Age Verification Certification Program found that its age verification system achieved accuracy in an average of 1.4 years for those under 18, and insisted there was no need to purchase Robux to play most of its games.

According to Andrew Wilmot, father and director of BrainSafe Standard, his experience is far from unusual. He describes Roblox as “one of the worst things that can happen to childhood” and hosts workshops for parents and policymakers about the risks on the platform.

He says he has seen how easily the platform’s age verification measures can be bypassed and how predators routinely use Robux to lure children into sexual or inappropriate acts.

“As a parent, I can’t stand Roblox,” he said. “Even for kids who don’t have the worst, most disastrous outcomes, the way the games are designed (which itself comes from Roblox and the way it makes money) is taken directly from casino design.”

Mr Wilmot, alongside leading academics, created the BrainSafe Standard, a method of analyzing how addictive digital products are. These measures include variable reward profiling, where platforms give users unknown rewards and give them “bad” messages to encourage them to keep playing, and temporal boundary erosion, where games have no specific end point.

As a father, he watches Roblox transcend the internet and into the real world for both of his children. he said Independent The platform “dominates his nine-year-old’s social life and conversations” and also appears in the games his four-year-old plays with his personal friends.

He believes the platform is extremely harmful to children, both because of the risks of maintenance and inappropriate content, and because of the addictive nature of the experiences.

“We need regulation that doesn’t ask Ofcom to just endlessly scroll and/or search for push notifications about something that has been listed,” he said. “We need to identify structural damages and make arrangements accordingly.”

Ivana Poku, 42, lives in Scotland with her 10-year-old twin boys. He said they first started playing Roblox around the age of six, but stopped using it after they became “addicted.”

He sent them back to the platform because they were now being played by so many of his friends, but he gave them strict time limits on it and speaks to them regularly about staying safe from strangers.

Erica Thornton is the executive director of the Breck Foundation, established in memory of Breck Bednar, a 14-year-old boy who was groomed and murdered by someone he met online. He believes that in order to become safer for children, Roblox should restrict all communication between those under 18 and strangers of any age.

“Breck was introduced to his predator through other friends who had been playing with him for years,” he said. “This would never have happened if they didn’t have a way to connect with a stranger.”

he said Independent 10 years ago parents might have noticed a child coming home with new tutors or staying on the phone at night; These are signs of potential abuse that they can watch out for. But the digital nature of Robux and online currency means that exploitation can remain “hidden”.

She said parents should be aware of the risks and speak to their children at home about the platform: “Education has to be as strong as regulations” she added. “We talk to kids about signs from a very young age. about maintenance and what to pay attention to.

A Roblox spokesperson said security is “fundamental” to everything the platform does.

He added: “We have strong protections that go beyond many other online platforms, including age controls for chat features designed to limit communication between adults and children they don’t know, and the newly launched age-appropriate Roblox Kids and Roblox Select accounts for players under 16.”

A government spokesman said it had been announced “World-first restrictions” on features including blocking strangers from messaging children on services such as gaming platforms.

“This approach will be supported by strong and effective age verification checks that will make it harder for children to bypass security measures,” they added.

“Predators often make initial contact through gaming platforms before getting kids used to sharing images on their phones. That’s why Apple and Google have been given three months to ensure kids can’t receive, share or view nude images on their devices.”