The world is a big, scary place for parents to let their kids loose in. One of the scariest parts is that even when our kids seem safe in their rooms or on our sofas, they may be exploring dangerous territory.
As a parent, it feels like the internet is so different from how it was in the 90s. There are a lot more people online, a wider variety of activities for kids to engage in, and more risks to navigate.
Roblox, which so many of our kids love, is getting a lot of media attention right now for the risks that have been exposed. Is banning it in your household the best step to protect your kids?
How Dangerous Is Roblox, Anyway?
Let’s be honest: this is the equivalent of asking, “How dangerous is the playground?”
The answer is, it really depends. Which playground is your child at? Are there trustworthy adults around? Is the equipment being managed, and the surrounding vegetation maintained? Who else is there?
The problem is, you really can’t know the answer to some of these questions, especially when your metaphorical ‘playground’ is in a location you can’t exactly pin down.
We do know some facts, though.
First of all, yes, predators do use Roblox (and any other location where kids might be unsupervised) to target potential victims. Since it’s online, they also have the advantage of being able to hide their identities.
There have been multiple incidents of children being kidnapped by predators who targeted them on the platform. Currently, it’s one of the most popular places for kids to be online, making it very attractive to dangerous people.
The platform is also facing many lawsuits from parents who say that the company failed to take necessary steps to protect children.
Roblox is implementing age-verification processes to limit who can access chat, and individual games on the platform can be set to 18+ so minors can’t access them, but none of this is airtight.
What Does All Of This Mean?
Roblox is a platform where individual users create games. That means that your child can design his own game, or join a game someone else designed. They may be entirely unique or may employ aspects of other popular games. (My older kids have played some that are based on the Five Nights at Freddy’s horror game series, for example.)
That’s part of why safety on Roblox is so nebulous. It’s really, as Psychology Today recently explained, not a game but a platform for many different games. Since these games are made by users, and no Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is examining and rating each individual game, the actual game content may not be what you (or your child) expect.
Then there are the other people. When your child hops on Roblox, they join a server — essentially an online ‘room’ of sorts that they share with others. This can be a private server, accessible only to a limited group, or a public server, accessible to anyone.
In other words, your child could be playing a totally safe and age-appropriate game with three of her school friends or siblings, or she could be in a roomful of strangers whose intentions you don’t know.
Can We Make It Safer For Our Kids?
Yes!
Most online spaces can never be entirely safe. Maybe none can ever be 100% safe — I still remember a story a teacher told my class back in the 90s, in which his daughter searched for an innocent term for a school paper, and a typo resulted in accidental exposure to adult material, despite parental control software!
That said, we can make many online spaces, including Roblox, safer by implementing a few safeguards.
It doesn’t have to be an unsupervised free-for-all. Both the platform and parents can take steps that will allow kids to continue playing and keep them as safe as possible.
What Can Parents Do?
First, talk to your children about the potential for harm online. Keep it age-appropriate, but make sure any child who will be playing online knows not to share personal information, including their school or town name. Make sure they know they should come to you if anyone makes them feel uncomfortable, online or off.
Second, you have to be the one handling the privacy and parental control settings. You can turn off the ability to use chat entirely, so that your children cannot send or receive messages.
Third, the safest option is to keep your child on private servers with people you know. This is especially excellent for siblings, but can also work with cousins, school friends, or anyone else you consider a safe contact. Researchers at Penn State found this to also be a key to protecting your child from scammers and inappropriate content.
Finally, no matter how they play, keep it in an area where you can supervise, especially for younger kids. As your kids get older, you can make careful decisions about how much internet privacy they get.
Is It Better To Ban The Platform Entirely?
Keeping your kids as safe as possible while letting them play Roblox or other online games will always require active effort. It will mean supervising while they’re little and checking in regularly as they get older.
It might be easier to simply forbid your kids from accessing Roblox. Many parents will choose that method.
However, almost a quarter of teens currently say they feel peer pressure to have a presence on Roblox, so you should be aware that simply banning the game at home increases the risk of sneaking. A ban will require some monitoring or trust to enforce, too.
That doesn’t mean it’s the wrong answer. It means each household will have to make that decision, but should do so with the awareness that both options involve effort.
The most important thing to remember here is that if you ban one platform, it’s still necessary to provide the same supervision and safety education on the platforms they use instead, whether that’s TikTok, Minecraft, YouTube, or any other gaming or entertainment site or app.
What’s The Platform’s Responsibility In This?
There’s been plenty of debate about the legal and moral responsibility of an entity to control what children are exposed to.
However, a court recently ruled that tech giant Meta failed in its responsibility to consumers by misleading them about the safety of its platforms, The Guardian reports, suggesting that the nation might be moving towards higher expectations from online spaces and greater accountability for their shortcomings.
Now, Roblox is facing very similar allegations in lawsuits alleging the platform has failed children by not implementing the necessary guardrails to keep it safe, the L.A. Times reports. The lawsuit argues that the platform has profited from giving predators access to kids because when an unknown adult offers to provide a child with in-game currency (Robux) as part of a grooming process, the company makes money on that transaction.
As the case progresses, it could make great strides in affirming exactly what legal responsibility gaming platforms hold to protect their users.
