Roblox scrambles to fight the 'pedophile hellscape' allegations with changes to pre-teen accounts that don't seem like enough

Roblox is making changes to its policies for pre-teen users, just weeks after a damning report from an investment research firm condemned the game as a "pedophile hellscape."

Per Bloomberg, Roblox emailed parents earlier this week to inform them that, starting in November, players younger than 13 will need to get parental permission before they can use certain Roblox chat features. Kids under 9, meanwhile, won't be able to play violent games or games with "crude humour" without permission from parents.

On top of that, you'll soon be able to create a new kind of parental account that can keep tabs on kid users' activity and friendships. "parents will no longer be able to set a parent PIN, use Account Restrictions, or receive account-related notifications to their parental email," Roblox told parents, "Instead, you will need to use an account with parent privileges."

And that, at least for now, is that. Roblox declined to provide Bloomberg with any further information about the changes beyond a statement that they are "part of Roblox’s commitment to making the platform one of the safest online environments for our users, particularly the youngest users." As an inveterate optimist, we reached out too, and got, well, the same statement back.

That Roblox is frantically trying to batten down the hatches on the accounts of its youngest users is no surprise. The company has been raked over the coals for over a year at this point for its attitudes toward its youngest users. There's the aforementioned "pedophile hellscape" report from earlier this month, sure, but the entire game was banned in Turkey for "child exploitation" last August.

Just before that, Bloomberg reported a separate story on a pedophile who used the game to groom, abduct and sexually assault a 15-year-old girl a full 18 months after the community had outed him as a predator. Prior to that, Roblox Studio head Stefano Corazza had to come out and deny that the company was "exploiting child labour." Last November, parents of Roblox-playing kids kicked off a class-action lawsuit against the company over complaints about sexual content and grooming.

So, yes, it's not too surprising that Roblox might be desperately attempting to make its platform safer for the many, many children who use it. What's surprising to me is how minimal these changes seem. Needing parental permission to access particular chat features and violent games is an okay start, sure, but I'm hoping the company's plans to right the ship go beyond this kind of tinkering at the edges.

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Given that the corporation isn't even really talking about the changes it's making in public just yet, that could well be the case (then again, like I said, I am an optimist). It'll need something bigger if it wants to make good on its ambition to secure "1 billion daily active users" and 10% of all global gaming revenue.