By admin 
Roblox will make further changes to the way its large audience of children interact with others on the platform, in response to growing security fears.
The final steps include a ban on users under the age of 13 from accessing social hangout experiences in Roblox, starting later this month. In addition, but not until December, children will be banned from seeing or playing experiences that have not been rated for their content.
Roblox says the change allowing kids access to social hangout experiences will help “address user behavior that could potentially pose a risk to our youngest users.”
In July a The Bloomberg report highlighted the 13,316 cases of child exploitation reported on Roblox alone in 2023, and that two dozen people had been arrested for abusing minors after contact in Roblox. The following month, short-selling firm Hindenberg Research published even more examples intended to highlight Roblox’s failure to protect children, in a report labeling the platform as an “X-rated pedophile hell” full of “grooming, pornography, violent content and extremely offensive language”.
Roblox responded to that report by calling it “simply misleading,” but last month announced plans to require parental consent by default for children under 13 to access chat features. Children under the age of nine also need permission to play experiences classified as ‘moderate’.
Now, kids will be further restricted from accessing social gathering places – which Roblox describes as “things like mood games, clubs, social and support spaces where the primary theme or purpose of the experience is to interact (e.g. via text or voice chat) with other people. users as yourself” – as well as in “freeform user creation” where users can draw or write in 2D without this text going through Roblox moderation.
Starting December 3, unrated experiences will become “unplayable, unsearchable, and untraceable for users under 13,” Roblox wrote, although users can still access them via a direct link.
For the time being, makers are asked to assess experiences themselves, with enforcement starting in 2025. In the future, review experiences will be “tightly integrated” into the publishing process, Roblox said.
Last month, Roblox viral hit Dress to Impress removed a Halloween hot dog costumeafter players started using it to cosplay as male genitals.