Key highlights
- Roblox has faced severe criticism with its handling of child safety.
- To counter this, the company has prepared a series of AI powered tools.
- The scope and feasibility of these solutions remain to be seen.
Roblox remains one of (if not the most) popular games right now, offering players a source of custom-made worlds that complement their endless creativity and imagination. However, amidst child safety concerns and endless other complaints, the game has most certainly seen better days in the public eye.
Over the years, Roblox has met with severe criticism online, which was also followed by multiple lawsuits, controversies and independent investigations. These led the company to prepare a series of countermeasures to stop dangerous, predatory activities.
Roblox Introduces ‘Age-Estimation’ Tech
In response to some rather damning evidence of predators roaming freely on the platform (along with a multitude of lawsuits and generally poor public reception) Roblox has unveiled a rather interesting solution, which involves greatly expanding on its ‘age estimation technology’.
The company has also partnered with the IARC (International Age Rating Coalition), and will replace its own age and content rating system with the already established ones from IARC. This means that age ratings will be subject to local rating agencies worldwide (with bodies such as the ESRB taking over).
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While this is a net positive overall, it does bring with it the massive drawback of not having a universal age rating system, no matter how flawed it might be. If anything, this could cause a bit of a headache for most users.
Going back to the age estimation tech, Roblox plans to incorporate features such as real-world ID age verification and video selfie scanning to verify the authenticity of the user’s age (in addition to keeping tabs on them, if required) – as opposed to having players simply enter their date of birth before.
Additionally, Roblox has also entirely restricted adding users between the ages of 13 through 17 to be able to add random users to their ‘trusted connections’. Players in this age group will only be able to add people if they are already in their contacts list and/or have valid, verified Roblox IDs.
All this will be powered by ‘Roblox Sentinel’, a specialized AI tool that can allegedly detect predatory behavior. This will be followed by the release of multiple systems that restrict communications between adults and minors. The tech is expected to be gradually rolled out by the end of the year, and will cover all forms of in-game communication.
None of This Matters if Roblox Refuses to Directly Address the Issue
While Roblox’s attempts to manage the problem are commendable, it might simply not be enough. For starters, the age estimation tech sounds wonky at best, in addition to being a total privacy nightmare.
The rating system also deserves its share of criticism, given its arbitrary nature and reliance on differing regulatory bodies to address the issue.
If anything, this looks like a half-hearted solution, and one that does not directly target the individuals at fault here. Roblox most certainly has a problem with keeping children safe on its platform, and has also tried to skirt away from directly addressing the issue in the past.
It took entire lawsuits across multiple US states along with worldwide and independent coverage to force them to budge. Even then, the response remains far from being satisfactory.
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While it is understandable that age verification features take a while to be implemented, subjecting it to a gradual release that is extended to the end of the year is not the way to do things, as this will most certainly allow for these bad actors to find a way to either flee or bypass the system.
In a nutshell, the solution proposed by Roblox seems half-baked at best, and offering no concrete way to weed out existing predators is also quite unfortunate and alarming. While Roblox’s popularity is unlikely to fade away anytime soon, it would be nice to see some form of regulation.
