Roblox Blocks Children From Chatting To Adult Strangers (bbc.com)
- Reference: 0180157805
- News link: https://games.slashdot.org/story/25/11/20/2227214/roblox-blocks-children-from-chatting-to-adult-strangers
- Source link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2lp5pn9e1qo
> Mandatory age checks will be introduced for accounts using chat features, starting in December for Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands, then the rest of the globe from January. [...] Rani Govender, policy manager for child safety online at the NSPCC, said action had been needed because young people had been exposed to "unacceptable risks" on Roblox, "leaving many vulnerable to harm and online abuse."
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> The charity welcomed the platform's latest announcement but called on Roblox to "ensure they deliver change for children in practice and prevent adult perpetrators from targeting and manipulating young users." The platform averaged more than 80 million daily players in 2024, about 40% of them under the age of 13. [...]
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> Matt Kaufman, chief safety officer for Roblox, told a press briefing the age estimation technology is "pretty accurate." He claimed the system can make close estimates of "within one to two years" bracket for users aged between five and 25. Currently it can be used voluntarily by anyone in the world.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2lp5pn9e1qo
Doubt (Score:5, Interesting)
All the age verification stuff from the UK âporn embargoâ(TM) was bypassed easily. Also presumably children are going to have their faces scanned? That seems like a future shitstorm brewing.
How do they know? (Score:1)
If I'm a 'parent' and I make an account for my 'child', how do they know? I fail to see how this will deter predators.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm assuming that was a sincere question rather than rheotrical: I am, in fact, a parent (no quotes), and I have children (no quotes). When I set them up on Roblox, I specifically set up those accounts with their actual ages, because I wanted Roblox to know that they're kids and do whatever it can (which is not enough, but better than if it thinks they're adults) to protect them.
Re: It's about social norms / contexts / defaults. (Score:2)
What if the incidence of harm from children talking to strangers, and children getting vaccinated, are about the same? Do you just cherry-pick the things you get freaked out about?
Re: (Score:2)
Even if they were, talking to strangers hasn't been proven beyond doubt to dramatically reduce the risk of something much more harmful, dipshit.
Re: (Score:2)
Why stop at strangers? Maybe kids shouldn't talk to anyone at all.
Re: It's about social norms / contexts / defaults (Score:1)
If you don't talk to strangers, will you live in an ignorant bubble where you just generalize about people instead of learning how individuals are complex and that you might share things with someone your parents taught you were the enemy?
Wait is that the harm you're talking about, letting kids think for themselves?
Obvious question: How? (Score:2)
When I see things like "facial age verification", I have major concerns, whether we're talking about a site like Roblox (whatever that is — I don't know, and don't really care), social media, porn, or any other site. How are you going to do it without violating the privacy of every person who creates an account? And how are you going to verify that the person using the account is the person who created it without causing an even bigger privacy violation?
We do need some sort of age verification syst
'facial age verification'? (Score:2)
My middle child, when she was age 25-30, could easily pass for 15.
Lawsuits abound from this.
I see no problem here. (Score:2)
It's not like verifying the age of people who are under 18 is hard or something. Just because they have almost no digital footprint or legal records to check against and can be talked into posing in front of a webcam pretending to be someone else for thirty seconds for in exchange for an ice cream cone should pose no problems whatsoever.
No (Score:2)
So you're saying all that one of these creeps on Roblox needs to do is grab one of the kids he has locked in his basement to pose for the camera for a few seconds?
Fuck (Score:4, Funny)
How am I supposed to recruit employees for my sweatshops now?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
You think you have it tough, how are members of the Trump administration supposed to look for dates now?
Re: Fuck (Score:2)
Well that link is staying unclicked!!
Re: (Score:1)
Call Epstein ..... ow wait.
Re: (Score:1, Funny)
It's okay Matt Gaetz picked up where Epstein left off.