MEMPHIS, Tenn. — As a parent, you always wonder what your child is into. For some it's sports, others it's theater, but for a growing number of kids, their attention has gone virtual.
“It’s now more than ever becoming a household name,” said Laura Ordoñez, with Common Sense Media.
Since launching in 2006, the popular game Roblox has found its way into millions of homes across the world. According to BackLinkO, there are at least 70 million active daily users on Roblox, up significantly from the 23.6 daily users it had in 2020.
“Between Roblox, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube…Roblox has been ranking number one since last year with three hours, and those are users four through 18,” said Ordoñez.
While it can be fun, there have been a number of complaints that the platform is not doing enough to protect children from inappropriate material.
"I found this random game and I heard a bad song and a bad picture," said Bennett, who came across a real-life photo of a woman in a thong on Roblox when he was only seven, even though the age restrictions were in place.
Incidents have even reached the Mid-South, with one ABC24 viewer emailing "Popular children's game Roblox allowing pornographic and inappropriate remarks without filtering in chat. I have multiple images showing how long this was going and how frequent it was."
While Ordoñez said Roblox has looked into enhancing safety measures, including it's chat moderators and programs with AI to crackdown on lewd messages, pictures and messages still find a way to fall through the cracks due to the sheer size of the platform.
“Roblox itself has said that this has actually not been helpful for them because a lot of times the user, after they report the content being inappropriate, don’t feel like they don’t get enough of a personalized message back to know anything is being done,” Ordoñez said.
However, the nonprofit director said blocking Roblox as a whole in your household does not necessarily need to be the call.
On Nextdoor, several parents told ABC24 they still allow their kids to play on the site, as long as the chat feature is disabled.
"My 6 year plays Roblox. I have content restrictions on to where he can't in-game chat, hear any in-game chat or have anyone message him. Any friend requests, I deny them," said Brad H. "Simple parenting for online games. My kid enjoys playing the game while not communicating with online strangers."
Ordoñez said combining the chat limitations with Roblox parental controls is going to be your best bet, while also making sure you take the time to get to know the platform with your child, so you can help address any concerning material you come across.
“Help them feel safe in talking about it, ‘Hey how did that make you feel?’ Just being open, not just that day that they tell you that they saw this, but the weeks after,” Ordoñez said.
If you have any other questions about the digital platform, Common Sense Media has created an online resource called 'The Parents Ultimate Guide to Roblox.'