Facing Mounting Criticism, Roblox Will Add New Protections For Users Under 13 And New Account Options For Parents

Roblox has always faced some level of criticism over how the company handles minors in their game creation platform. Whether that's come in the way of accusations regarding minors in the creation process, or reports of the company not doing enough to protect minors from predators, the company has found itself on the defensive multiple times over the last few years.

Hell, the game was recently banned in Türkiye. In response to that ban, Roblox decided they'd be willing to open a local office in the country to help stay compliant with laws...if access were restored at some point. How kind of them.

Now, according to an email sent to parents and initially reported on by Bloomberg (paywall), the company will be expanding protections for users under 13 years old next month.

The incoming changes will restrict certain chat features for users under 13 unless a parent gives access permission. Users under 9 will also have restrictions on content with crude humor or moderate violence. Again, this restriction can be bypassed with parental permission.

Speaking of parents, they'll be getting access to a new account type that allows you to adjust parental permissions and to monitor usage and access for their children. Simply link the parent account to the accounts of their children, and wham, permissions control. All changes will now have to go through the parental account, so the previous PIN code system will no longer be in effect. As long as your child can't access your parental account, you won't need the previously used PIN process anyway.

The Verge has a full copy of the email if you want more particulars.

As a parent, I appreciate improvements in this area...but as a parent, I also think that these "controls" are pretty easy to bypass by the user simply not being honest at account creation...but we'll see.