The "child safety measures" was dividing the playerbase into age groups and banning almost all communication between them. The age groups are under 9, 9–12, 13–15, 16–17, 18–20, and 21+. Users only speak to other players ±1 age group, so 18-20 can speak to 16-17 or 21+.<p>The problem is almost every game on Roblox is social and the matchmaking isn't mature enough to ensure players in a lobby can all communicate.<p>My favourite is "generic roleplay gaem". The main fun is inciting riots against the leader or forming alliances to do raids. I could join a game and within half-an-hour I'd be engaged in drama, since Roblox incentivizes ephemeral lobbies with random people meaning I don't need a lengthy time commitment to form an alliance.<p>But I can no longer do that because I am 25 years old and the lobbies are too young. Heck, I'd rather play that game with only other users over 18+ because I could swear and be more toxic. But the matchmaking system literally makes that impossible.<p>I've had the same Roblox account for 18 years and have spent tens of thousands of Robux on the platform. I let Roblox scan my passport even, so they know who I am. Even though I own nearly 1000 Steam games, Roblox still filled my desire for low-commitment social games I could jump into on my phone or computer if I had a few hours of downtime. Now it is effectively unplayable.<p>I'm in favour of child safety. But these measures were implemented poorly and needed to be paired with matchmaking to not destroy the platform.
> <i>these measures were implemented poorly and needed to be paired with matchmaking to not destroy the platform</i><p>I see these as orthogonal issues.<p>Your mathmaking gripe sounds legitimate, and is probably driven by Roblox's low 21+ user numbers. That would be expected to change over time. At the same time, I'm not seeing a great argument for why these folks (EDIT: Roblox) should continue to have unfettered access to kids under 14.
Why 18-20 are isolated from 21+? Aren't they all adult or in some countries children develop slower?
They aren't:<p>> Users only speak to other players ±1 age group<p>I.e., 18-20 can speak to 16-17 AND 21+, but 21+ can only speak to 18+
> <i>Why 18-20 are isolated from 21+?</i><p>We have 18-year olds in high school in America. The headline risk from a 40-something sleeping with a high-school student is probably something Roblox wants to get ahead of.
US drinking age probably being used as a proxy for "adult-ness".
This sounds like a really counterproductive system. Usually in age verification, you prove that you're over a certain age. 9 year olds don't have very many ways to prove that they're 9 years old. What's stopping the creeps from pretending to be younger than they are?
You've had your Roblox account for 18 years? Wtf, I could've sworn that game was released 4 years ago!<p>Thanks for making me feel old I guess.
Or perhaps you’ve aged out of a game that is primarily meant to be a place for children. The child safety measures make things more difficult for you because nobody wants you there. And it seems to be working as designed. Maybe it’s time to find a new game that’s more for your age group.
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Roblox's introduction of mandatory face verification to chat is one of the most biggest examples of how people in tech can get so deep in trying to create a solid technical solution, that they completely miss the human problems it creates.<p>You could create the best possible face verification system that processes everything completely locally, uses CPU security features to make sure the photos stay exactly where they're supposed to, etc etc. You could design the best possible chat age segregation system that makes sure nobody can ever get groomed over chat again. You can get so deep that you forget you're forcing children to take pictures of themselves, and fail to consider the wider effects this will have on the safety of those kids in general.<p>How's Jimmy supposed to know that taking a picture of himself for roblox.com is okay, but taking a picture for somescamwebsite that he found in a Roblox game is absolutely not okay? This solution creates a much worse problem. Sane parenting would tell kids to never take pictures of themselves or put it on any website, but now we're clearly shifting the role of parenting to tech companies and we are going to see bad consequences of this.
This feels like a bit of a reach. It's not really clear that adding face scanning as a blocker for chat makes anyone more likely to fall for scams. These hypotethical god tier engineers should just make scam prevention software in addition to face scanning anyway?
Ideally Roblox would be able to rely on the platform to tell them whether the device is child-locked or not. It would be up to parents to make sure their kids only have access to devices with appropriate locks turned on. Parents could rely on vendors to make devices where it’s easy to set appropriate locks, and rely on stores not to sell unlocked devices to kids.<p>But we don’t live in that world.<p>Also, the are trying to prevent adults from pretending to be kids, which is much harder than preventing kids from accessing adult sites.
If 11-year-old Jimmy is anything like I was a lifetime ago (in terms of understanding tech), he knows how to ask an LLM to take his picture and make him look like he's 18... and none of it matters anyways.
<p><pre><code> "While our aggressive push to enhance safety lowers our expectations for topline growth in 2026, it makes our platform fundamentally better and amplifies the long-term growth potential of Roblox through more effective content targeting, tailored communication experiences, and improved community sentiment," the company wrote in its letter to shareholders.
</code></pre>
Actual ghouls.
Man, I watched a couple segments of their people being interviewed (Creative Director, IIRC) and I have to agree with you, actual ghouls in sheep clothing.<p>The Internet Comment etiquette episode on Roblox Is both hilarious and so concerning.<p><a href="https://youtu.be/ROG5V0tSuA0?si=iHjWlBy1dE1NtlsK" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/ROG5V0tSuA0?si=iHjWlBy1dE1NtlsK</a>
That interview of their CEO with the NYT from last year was insane. If you've never seen it: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpIXRgMlPo4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpIXRgMlPo4</a>
They have to head off the investor whos going to ask "is child safety bullish?"
Just about anything can be claimed to maximize shareholder profits in the long term. This is an illustrative example of how it's done.<p>Whether it actually turns out that way is another question.
Investors are hilarious. What’s better: more investment in child safety measures so that a company remains a long term product that parents allow their children on, or no safety measures to increase profit so that parents stop letting their kids be on the platform, thereby killing long term viability of the product?<p>Quarterly thinking is the bane of the health of corporate America.
In this case, "child safety measures" includes not just "stopping child predators," but also "not letting kids use their parents' credit card to buy $500 of Robux" and "not letting underage users buy lootboxes, aka gambling".<p>It's completely understandable that the company, which profits off children, putting in measures making it harder to profit off children, would lower both its long and short-term valuations.
So are you buying Roblox hand over fist? Didn't think so.<p>It's easy to talk big, it's hard to beat the supposedly stupid, myopic market.
Possible that there aren't measures that will actually achieve long-term safety while maintaining a highly popular platform?
Those profits, if they happen, will be delayed, so it means they aren't worth quite as much.
Markets are future discounting machines. A stock price does not reflect the current economic reality, but rather the present-day anticipation of how that company will perform in the future. Adding more friction to user experience and onboarding seems like a legitmate concern for retention and growth. The collective thinks this won't be good for future earnings, and I'd be curious to hear why you think otherwise.
It's not even quarterly thinking, it's castles in the sky speculation about what the market thinks the market will react to.
"According to the company, 73% of age-checked daily active users on Roblox were under 18, with 35% under 13 as of Jan. 31."<p>The story under the story seems to be Roblox has lost plausible deniability.<p>With increasing–and, in my view, inevitable–calls for age gating social media, these data mean between a third and three quarters of Roblox's users could soon be banned from monetisation or banned entirely from their platform.
Roblox has long been known as a pedo farm, and talks with friends actually with kids all know it, so I don't know how it's still even around.
This is the second time in the last month that Hindenburgh's reports appear to be prophetic. Previously, they called out Backblaze before the company began harming its own product.
More safety = less sales, got it, nothing to worry about here, parents.
The market valuates Roblox child abuse at almost a billion dollars?
Good.<p>I am curious why does Roblox even exist?<p>This shouldn’t even be a business, let alone a public company.<p>I wish games can just stay games like Valve does and not grow and grow and grow into public companies.
There was a time 5-10 years ago where Roblox was going on a ex-FAANG hiring spree and folks on Blind were pulling in insane salaries (probably still pay amazing).. but to work for fucking <i>Roblox</i>. Truly a "these are not my people" moment.
Roblox is open buffet for pedos for YEARS.<p>These corporations don't give a sh...<p>Only thing you can do is to petition your lawmakers to ban whole platform.<p>Safety measures will always be a joke. Open chat/voice chat, "Hi, connect to my discord" -> all safety measures bypassed.<p>But at the end of the day, this a parenting problem.
Funny how the world abruptly decided kids shouldn't have social interactions online right as AI chatbots took off.
I wouldn't connect those things too closely, nor to the broader legislative efforts to ban pornography and monitor everyone's messages. Roblox has been a special hell of predatory interactions for a very long time now, and the walls may finally be coming down...
This is far more reaching than just Roblox, essentially all forms of online access where kids ("kids" most often being defined 15 and under) can hangout and communicate are rapidly being restricted. Facebook, instagram, tiktok, snapchat, whatsapp, discord, roblox, fortnite, steam, etc.<p>Obviously some companies have sketchier pasts and are feeling the pressure more, but this is a very broad trend of restricting online access and communication.
Have a look how Nintendo do it. Their communications between players was (is?) very limited.
Yeah Nintendo is the same as Disney Toontown 20 years ago. It makes it basically impossible to form social bonds.<p>My bigger point is there are increasingly very few spaces for teenagers to socialize and interact (and at least in the US, very few offline), and what sort of long-term ramifications this is going to have. If the net outcome of this is kids return to playing outside and unfettered access to parks and neighborhoods as far as their bikes will take them, I think that's great, but I suspect those will also continue to be heavily locked down.
It’s abrupt only if you are unaware of safety challenges and issues in children’s gaming in the past decade.<p>Moderating user generated games is a kafkaesque joke. It’s not just text, audio, or video. It’s all of those combined in an interactive environment which can include trigger conditions - and one category of games is escaping from mazes.<p>Since it’s kids, you will end up with maps based on actual schools, combined with violence, on your mod que.<p>The list of horrifying stuff that happens frequently is quite long, and it’s unfortunate how unaware most people seem to be about it.<p>At least so many people wouldn’t be surprised.
School maps, takes me back, I made them back in the day myself. Fact is kids spend so much time at school and it’s their social life as well. Of course in my day it was made by kids for kids, not by grooming adults.