Roblox announces new safety features for under-13s

Roblox is introducing new safety features for children under the age of 13, following criticism of how it protects younger users.

The free online gaming platform, which has around 70 million daily users worldwide, allows players to create their own games and play those made by others.

It is particularly popular with children – but some have complained they have been exposed to upsetting and harmful content on the site.

Starting 3 December, game creators will be asked to say whether their games are suitable for under-13s – with any that fail to do so being blocked for players 12 and younger.

And from 18 November, under-13s will also be barred from accessing “social hangouts”, which are online spaces where players can talk to each other by text and voice.

It specifies hangout experiences as games where “the primary theme or purpose” is to allow people to communicate with each other as themselves, rather than role-playing as a character.

Younger users will also be unable to use “free-form 2D user creation” from the same date, which it said were games “that allow users to draw or write in 2D and replicate those creations to other users without the completed creation going through Roblox moderation”.

It is thought that this is aimed at preventing users writing or drawing offensive images or messages which are difficult to moderate.

“We recognize the deadline is soon, but we greatly appreciate your cooperation in helping us ensure Roblox is a safe and civil place for users of all ages to come together,” it said in a post on the Roblox developer website.

According to the media regulator Ofcom, Roblox is the most popular game in the UK for children aged 8 to 12.

But it has faced criticism over its protections for younger users, with one young person telling the BBC in May he had been approached on Roblox and asked for sexual images.

At the time, Ofcom, the regulator for online safety, told tech firms to hide “toxic” content from children and published draft codes of practice.

Since then there have been further issues, with Turkey entirely blocking access to Roblox in August.

“As a company that’s transparent with our community of developers, we needed to share key information about the upcoming changes prior to launch,” Roblox told the BBC in a statement.

“We’re constantly strengthening our safety systems and policies — we shipped over 30 improvements this year and we have more to come,” it added.

But despite announcing the changes would begin swiftly, it said it would not begin enforcing the requirements until 2025.