Roblox Updates Parental Controls, Safety Systems amid Ongoing Lawsuit

Amid the looming class-action lawsuit against the popular online gaming platform, Roblox, the platform updated its safety systems and parental controls. Announced earlier this week, the major update seeks to protect consumers, mainly children, by implementing robust controls and safety features.

New Communications Restrictions, Labels and Limits

Roblox explained that the changes were implemented and developed following an extensive internal research, usability tests, interviews, as well as feedback and surveys from kids and parents across the globe. To ensure maximum results and protection for the children using the platform, the company also engaged in consultation with health care experts and child safety professionals.

The updated controls enable parents to easily control the activities on their child’s account. To access the enhanced features, parents need to link their Roblox accounts to the accounts belonging to their children.

Once this is completed, legal guardians and parents can set different limits, including daily screen-time limits. Such a limit, once reached, would prevent the child from accessing the platform until the next day. Furthermore, parents will be able to view their children’s friend list.

Notably, Roblox rolled out built-in restrictions for communications. As a result of the update, users under the age of 13 won’t be able to chat with other consumers on the platform outside of games. What’s more, a built-in setting will “limit users under age 13 to public broadcast messages only within a game or experience.” As explained by Roblox: “By default, users younger than 13 will not be able to directly message others. Parents can change this setting in Parental Controls.”

Important part of the changes revolves around the implementation of labels for games on the platform. This transitions from the previously used age recommendation model as Roblox delivered labels specific to the game features such as violence, bad language and others. Helping protect children, the platform enables the parent to determine what labels their children can view.

Lawsuit Against Roblox Continues

Approximately half of the daily consumers of the platform are children under the age of 18. Recent data suggests that Roblox records approximately 79.5 million active users every day. This would translate to nearly 40 million active daily users on the platform being children. In that line of thought, the enhanced parent controls and safeguards are not surprising.

At the same time, the class action lawsuit against Roblox continues. Parents who filed the lawsuit argued that the platform enabled children to gain access to third-party websites, which offered activities similar to gambling and used Robux, the virtual currency used by Roblox.

Responding to the accusations, the platform rejected any affiliation to third-party gambling websites that used its virtual currency. In addition, Roblox argued that such use of its currency is in violation of the terms and conditions it sets for its customer base.

Refuting the allegations about profits in light of selling Robux for gambling on third-party websites, the platform explained that its rules do not permit the exchange of the virtual currency back to real money. This otherwise means that Robux, per the platform’s rules, has limited use only within the platform itself.