A Guardian Australia journalist tested Roblox for a week as an eight-year-old girl and encountered harassment, «donation» humiliation, aggressive animations, and toxic chat, even with parental settings enabled.
A Guardian Australia journalist tested Roblox for a week as an eight-year-old girl and encountered harassment, «donation» humiliation, aggressive animations, and toxic chat, even with parental settings enabled.
This is stated in the story of the journalist The Guardian. In the first «experience» Dress to Impress appeared game mechanics that encourage trolling: participants rate the images and can throw virtual «tomatoes» or «buns» at competitors, as well as use poses that caused complaints and eventually flew out of updates. During the game, hidden rooms with disturbing hints were revealed, and the chat regularly turned into a field for bullying children’s avatars.
Outside of DTI, the author easily found herself in popular role-playing games and «exiles,» where the character received sexualized «gestures,» direct insults, and violent actions from other players. In Berry Avenue, strangers simulated humiliation and called her a «toilet,» in Suffer, the avatar was shot immediately upon entering, and in Prison Pump, «newbies» were bullied and forced to pay or «swing» to avoid becoming a target for beatings.
The lack of clarity over content responsibility only made things worse, as the owners and moderators of individual worlds are often teenagers. In Dress to Impress, public outrage was caused not only by paid «troll features» but also by the behavior of the staff: one of the administrators was publicly accused of inappropriate interactions with a minor, after which the game manager announced the dismissal of the employee and the consideration of the idea of 18+ moderation.
Roblox’s official stance boils down to claims of «industry-leading» security policies, AI-based pre-release reviews of games, and chat filters that supposedly block the sharing of images and personal information. In response to criticism in Australia, the company agreed to make accounts for users under 16 private by default and to technically block unwanted contact with adults without parental consent; it also announced over a hundred security improvements throughout the year.
The legal landscape in the US is being strengthened by lawsuits and claims from state prosecutors, including demands to more strictly limit communications between adults and children and remove mechanics that encourage bullying for money. Regulatory pressure is being placed on the platform’s business model, where a significant portion of earnings depends on micropayments in user-generated «worlds,» creating a conflict between «game time» and the safety of minors.
The Guardian investigation focused on three risk nodes: monetization, which turns trolling into paid «entertainment»; blurred accountability in games run by teenagers; and uneven quality of moderation, which is lagging behind the scale of the audience. Against this backdrop, states are offering «safety by default» and transparent rules for developers, while parents are advised to have strict privacy settings, purchase controls, chat restrictions and regular audits of the game worlds their children are in.
Previously, dev.ua wrote about how Roblox announced a major update: the platform launches short TikTok-style videos, introduces generative AI tools for content creators, and increases developers' income.
