The Potential Risks Involved With Playing Roblox

Roblox, the company behind the world’s first virtual dolls, has seen its market share drop dramatically in recent years. Roblox is now being run by the acquisition firm Clearwater Equity. But the Roblox explosion is giving parents some concern because they worry whether the privacy-conscious multiplayer format and open chat policy are appropriate for their children. “While most of the interactions kids will have on Roblox will be with other kids, such as most other interactive gaming platforms, there are still predators lurking on Roblox, including child predators,” says Josh Nelson, communications director for Parents Together, a family-based nonprofit. “The chat and real-time interaction may entice kids to engage in conversations with strangers, but it’s important that parents know about it, and that they have options to block their child’s online activities.” But does Roblox really need to worry?

First, Roblox makes a point to point out that its focus on providing an environment in which children can play safely is not its goal in making its games. “Roblox’s focus on making our games accessible is to provide a positive experience for all players and to create a better player experience overall,” says Robert Cornyn, senior vice president of Roblox Americas. “Although it is our goal to continually work to prevent the access of predators, we don’t want to put our children in any type of situation where they could become a target.” Roblox does point out that there is strong evidence that some predators are becoming more brazen, so they may just need a new platform.

But Roblox goes a step further and makes it clear that its focus on safety is not only to protect against predators but also against people who are misusing its platform for inappropriate reasons. According to Roblox: “There has been a great deal of discussion and debate regarding whether or not chat rooms should be allowed on Facebook. Based on Roblox’s findings, we believe it is important to bring this topic up again so that parents and users can take action to eliminate these rooms.” Roblox goes on to detail many of its safety measures, like blocking chat activity from occurring within certain areas and having clear terms of use.

But not everyone is happy with the way Roblox has handled this situation. One big criticism of Roblox is that it seems to be geared more towards adult players than it is towards young children. In addition, some parents say that it doesn’t have the same kind of filtering features that they might find on a more robust site like Facebook or MySpace. However, Roblox clarifies that while its chat feature will not filter out inappropriate speech, it will block inappropriate photos and other materials. Roblox also says that children can chat with as many people as they want, but they do have to be adults over the age of thirteen.

In order to prevent children from using their mobiles in ways that would be inappropriate, some Facebook and MySpace users have taken matters into their own hands. They have set up their own dedicated rooms for chat and play, complete with parental controls and chat filtering. Others have turned to third-party applications in order to accomplish this task. One such application is Roblox Chat, which has already been incorporated into many Facebook chat programs such as Facebook Chat and FriendFinder.

Another way to combat these predators is to simply have a designated place on your home computer where you keep Roblox games, movies, and music. The robot game room is popular among kids because it offers free entertainment and a chance for younger users to learn how to communicate with others online. For younger children, this feature is invaluable, since they may not be able to participate in conversations with adults in real life. If your child gets caught red-handed chatting with an individual who is younger than she is on Facebook or MySpace, then you might find yourself having to explain the difference between real people and virtual people to your young child again.

Roblox has taken measures to ensure that its platform is sufficiently secure. They have integrated a “Report Abuse” feature into their web browser, which sends a clear message to users if they discover that a player has engaged in abusive behavior on Roblox chat. This report includes details such as the player’s name, age, location, and email address. Children can also make use of Roblox’s in-built blocklist feature, which limits chat access to members of certain groups.

It’s important to note, though, that there are still potential risks involved with playing Roblox. Many observers of Roblox believe that the service encourages young children to engage in online activity with strangers and to click on advertisement links. Though these observers might see the concept of making a child-safe via Roblox in this way, the fact is that Roblox is one of the most popular virtual gaming platforms in the world today. Children might be attracted to this fact, assuming that there is no real danger involved with playing the game. If the child does get caught, then she will have the option of either losing her account or of waiting a few hours until the moderator removes the inappropriate content from the website.