Roblox is implementing some major changes to the control it gives parents over their children's accounts following damning reports that its platform was rife with child exploitation and abuse.
In an email sent to parents who manage children accounts on Roblox, which IGN has obtained, the company details that it's finally introducing Roblox accounts with parental privileges. Prior to this, Roblox parental controls allowed parents to essentially set a PIN on a child's account that only the parent would know. This unlocks the ability to change settings like what type of content the child can access and set spending limits.
Now, PINs are going away. Instead, parents must create their own separate Roblox accounts and link them to the child account. This gives parents the ability to update parental controls from their own device, as well as access information about the child's time spent in Roblox and friend list.
Additionally, users under the age of 13 will now require a parent's permission to use certain chat features, and users under the age of nine will require parental permission to engage with any Roblox experiences labeled as having "Moderate" content maturity ratings.
Here's the email in full:
Roblox's changes come on the heels of a report from investment firm Hindenburg Research that accused the company of, among other things, being a haven for groomers and pedophiles due to a lack of up-front screening of new accounts. It claimed to have found open trading of child pornography on the site as well as violent and hateful speech and sexually explicit content in numerous games marketed to kids on the platform. Roblox responded, saying that "safety and civility" have been "foundational" to Roblox since its inception. However, Hindenburg followed up by pointing out that it had not addressed allegations of Roblox being a "pedophile hellscape."
Roblox's response is an abject failure to address the two core allegations in our report, including:
— Hindenburg Research (@HindenburgRes) October 8, 2024
1. Evidence that Roblox has been systematically lying for years about the number of people on its platform and their genuine level of engagement.
2. That the platform is a… pic.twitter.com/Tj2KiANOnI
And this is far from the first time Roblox has been accused of fostering an unsafe and exploitative environment for children. Back in 2018, the company faced criticism after a mother reported her seven-year-old daughter's Roblox character was violently sexually assaulted by several other characters. Around the same time, a six-year-old girl was reportedly invited into a "sex room" in the game. In 2021, reports were highlighted of users recreating real-world mass shootings in the game, and People Make Games published a report alleging that Roblox's business model exploits child labor. In 2022, a San Francisco lawsuit accused Roblox of enabling the financial and sexual exploitation of a 10-year-old girl. In 2023, it was sued both for allegedly facilitating "an illegal gambling ecosystem" and more generally for having lax child safety protocols that allegedly led to financial loss and children's exposure to adult content.
Earlier this year, the platform announced it reported over 13,000 incidents of child exploitation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2023, resulting in the arrest of 24 predators who allegedly groomed and abused children on Roblox. This number is up 3,000 from 2022. A Bloomberg report suggested that there remained a number of other abusers on the platform who had managed to evade capture. At the time, Roblox referred to itself as "one of the safest online environments for our users, particularly the youngest users."
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
