What makes the notorious game Roblox dangerous for children?

Roblox is a platform where users create their own games, worlds, and projects, and other players can join them. The game has extensive social features: chat, friendship, cooperative gameplay, in-game purchases. This provides many opportunities but also creates risks.

What risks exist?

Contact with strangers and pedophilia. One of the most serious risks is a child's contact with strangers who may try to gain trust, manipulate, and even coerce into violations or inappropriate actions. Online child predators sometimes use chats, private messages, or create friendly personas.

The platform takes steps to limit such contacts: for example, users under 13 have restrictions on private messages without parental consent.

But these measures don't always work completely, as age is often difficult to verify, and some users can bypass filters.

Inappropriate, unpleasant, or harmful content.

Since Roblox allows users to create their own worlds and games, there may be content that is not age-appropriate for children: horror elements, crude language, scenes that may be frightening or shocking.

1. "bypass" audio or video, where someone circumvents filters to upload sound/speech containing profanity or insults.

2. "role-playing games" or situations where children can interact with older players, including material with sexual undertones.

Cyberbullying and emotional risks.

Insults, offenses, mockery - in chat, in game groups, during collective play. This can hurt feelings, lower self-esteem, cause fear, anxiety.

Social pressure: the need to look "cool" with rare items, outfits, status within the game. Children may feel they are "falling behind" if they don't have what others have.

Financial risks.

Robux - internal currency that can be purchased with real money. Some children may not understand that "Robux" costs money and make purchases without realizing the consequences.

Scammers promising "free Robux" or "rare items" - can deceive, force the transfer of personal data or even login/password.

Losses from account hacking - if an account contains expensive or rare items, someone might steal it.

Privacy and personal data issues.

Children are sometimes directly asked questions about their name, age, place of residence - if they share this information, there may be risks.

The platform collects data about users, including their in-game behavior, what games they play, who they communicate with. If data protection is weak or a leak occurs, this can be dangerous.

Addiction, time, health.

Loss of proper balance: children can spend a lot of time on Roblox, which can harm sleep, academic performance, physical activity.

Impact on mental health: if a child is constantly under stress, if someone is bullying them through the game, or if they feel pressure, this can cause anxiety and even depression.

Deficiencies in moderation and age verification.

Some games are incorrectly labeled or not labeled at all, making it difficult for parents to understand if the content is suitable.

Possibility to bypass age restrictions. Users can lie about their age or create new accounts.

Moderation cannot instantly identify all cases of inappropriate behavior or content - due to the vast amount of content, new games, audio/video.

What is Roblox already doing, what safety measures exist?

Roblox implements various tools to reduce risks: restrictions on private messages and chat for children under 13. Parental settings that allow viewing friends list, managing game time, limiting purchases. Content labeling system - "minimal," "moderate," etc.,