Australia Claims Roblox Still Struggles with Child Predator Issues

Roblox is set to enhance its child safety features following an evaluation by Australia’s online safety regulator, eSafety. The regulator has raised concerns about the platform’s compliance with the Online Safety Act, particularly regarding its ability to prevent interactions between adults and users under 16. Despite implementing some new safety protocols, eSafety’s recent assessments indicated that the platform still poses risks to children, including allowing contact with adult strangers.

Key findings from eSafety’s testing revealed that:
> Adults could send friend requests to young Australian users without needing parental or carer approval;
> Children and adults could interact with each other’s posts on forums outside of game settings without parental or carer consent;
> Children’s connections were visible to all users on the Roblox platform;
> Children’s profiles and bios, including usernames, connection counts, avatar images, and non-sensitive personal interests, were accessible to anyone on Roblox, with no option to limit this visibility.

Roblox asserts that it complies with the Online Safety Act, but it plans to implement additional safety measures, which will include:
> Blocking adults from contacting unknown children without parental consent;
> Making children’s accounts private by default;
> Providing accessible reporting mechanisms that inform users about the outcomes of complaints;
> Hiring an independent third-party auditor to evaluate the effectiveness of its safety measures, including age-estimation tools.

“This initiative follows productive discussions with eSafety and demonstrates our commitment to collaborating with regulators and policymakers globally to ensure kids are safe online,” stated Nicky Jackson Colaço, Roblox’s global head of public policy. “Our recent launch of advanced safety features on Roblox, such as Roblox Kids and Select accounts designed specifically for users under 16, exemplifies this commitment.”

In the United States, Roblox is currently under investigation by a Senate subcommittee and has faced lawsuits from several states regarding child safety concerns, although it has resolved some of these legal challenges.
Update, August 20th: Added Roblox statement.