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Roblox looks cute like Minecraft so parents don’t pay attention to it.
Most games have a chat feature tacked on, but Roblox is more like a chatroom with games added on. It’s a chatroom where around 60% of the user base is under the age of 16. 40% of the users are under the age of 12.
Grooming starts on Roblox but the bad stuff happens in places like Discord private servers. Roblox doesn’t do anything to stop it because the can claim ignorance since it doesn’t happen directly in their chat.
I know a kid who went through this. I was the one that had to flag all the messages for Discord to get involved. The kid talked to me about the online groomers bc he wasn’t comfortable talking to his parents since he hadn’t told them that he was gay. I can’t imagine kids like him who deal with abuse because they don’t have anyone they feel safe to tell.
If you have kids that play these games, talk to them about online safety. Make sure you have a plan for when something bad happens. When not if. Work together with your kid to find a third party that you trust and the kid would feel comfortable talking to if something happens and they are afraid to tell you, maybe a relative or a close friend.
Coelacanth@feddit.nu 1 day ago
You know I’m usually against Australia’s insane video game censorships, but this time they may be on to something.
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
Well, the problem is that if its rating changes, the game will be rated based on online content that is not actually part of the content of the game. AFAIK, it would be the first instance ever of this happening. Like if Animal Crossing became rated M because of user generated content like shirt patterns showing something inappropriate.
Its not really the game’s “fault” that user generated content is causing a problem, so changing the rating of the game wouldn’t really change anything.
Plus, who even follows ratings anymore? We used to in the 90s, but children have been playing M rated games for a long time. I don’t see how this is going to do literally anything. Unless you are going to demand age verification to get the game, which I think is a horrendous trade off. Change the rating of a game which is known to have a problem with grooming in DMs in exchange for being forced to present identification to buy or play video games?
Barrington@feddit.org 7 hours ago
If you allow user generated content in your game, you should be responsible for it.
As for changing the rating not achieving anything, you’re wrong again. I imagine there are a lot of adults with kids who are unaware of the chat elements of Roblox and how it exposed their children to sex offenders. Changing the rating would likely cause some people to pause for thought when seeing it. It would probably limit it’s visibility on some store front. Possibly be removed from others. And if nothing else, I imagine the news cycle around having its rating changed would reach a lot of people who wouldn’t usually be aware of this.