Concerns over online games like Roblox have parents urging diligence with kids’ safety | #childpredator | #kidsaftey | #childsaftey

Questions have been swirling lately about children’s safety on online platforms, including Roblox — a popular game among youth — being singled out as potentially unsafe.

This month, Roblox said it would implement protections for its young users and pay the state of Nevada a $12-million US settlement, which will be used to create a safer environment for children online.

That news comes nearly a month after juries in both New Mexico and California found major social media companies like Meta and YouTube put children’s safety and mental health at risk.

People in this province share some of those concerns, especially when it comes to the danger of interacting with potential predators online.

Roblox’s gameplay allows users to build rooms and play games, and it also allows kids to chat with other players.

Summerside resident Evan Getson’s step-children play the game, and so do his niece and nephews, all between nine and 12 years old.

Getson stresses that communication between parents and children is vital.

“Strangers on the internet is a concern for, I think, every parent out there and any caregiver out there that is a guardian of kids,” he told This is P.E.I. 

Parental controls are available, Getson said, but honest conversations need to be held with children to ensure they don’t interact with people they don’t know online.

“Obviously, you don’t get into the details of what the real concerns are and how serious it can be, but you do try and convey that it is important,” he said.

“You can’t live their lives for them, but you can provide the tools that they can then be critical thinkers themselves.” 

Amber Mac, a mother and expert on online safety for children, said online platforms have started to add requirements that users verify age using facial recognition or government IDs.

She said those protections have, to an extent, helped ensure kids are not interacting with adults online.

“But, at the end of the day, we know when it comes to online behaviour that it is very easy for predators to circumvent some of these guardrails that these companies have put in place,” she said, explaining that potential predators can gain a child’s trust through the platforms.

“That person, over time, has become what this child would assume is one of their friends who is … the same age as them. But that is not the case.”

These aren’t relationships that occur with a single interaction, she said, but rather one that’s built over time — it’s what’s known as grooming.

“All of a sudden, the person, potentially a predator who is interacting with the child, could start to request inappropriate images, could request video chats. And then we get into this area where there is abuse that’s taking place,” Mac said.

“This is an extreme case, but there have been thousands and thousands of incidents of behaviour like this over the past few years.… It is only recently that Roblox has stood up to try to put an end to this.”

Roblox is a worldwide platform, Mac said, and that includes both rural and urban areas of Atlantic Canada.

“That interaction can actually be really creative. It can be great in terms of connection and companionship with a child’s group of actual friends,” she said.

“But [Roblox] is one of the riskier … online platforms in terms of the way that the platform is built, but also the really kind of loose guardrails that do exist and that are relatively new.”

‘Nothing is yet perfect’

Elizabeth Milovidov, the senior director of parental advocacy for Roblox — a position the company created about a year ago — said in a response to CBC News that safety “is fundamental to everything we do at Roblox.”

“We have built our platform with several layers of protection to help keep kids safe. We continuously innovate and add additional safety layers and features,” she said in a statement, adding the game recently began requiring age checks that limiting users to chatting only with their peers by default.

Mac said predators do go to these platforms with the intention of interacting with youth, and it has led to some serious cases where predators groom children and encourage them to meet in person.

“Parents need to be very aware of what their kids are doing online,” she said.

“As much as the companies, I think especially over the past year, have been more accountable for some of the behaviour of their users, nothing is yet perfect. And so those risks do still exist.”

Getson limits screen time for his children, but he admits that can be difficult when parents work full time and can give themselves a break by handing their kids a tablet.

Children can also become combative at times if a device is taken away, he said.

“It’s not a case of, ‘Here, play on your tablet, I’m going to go off and do whatever I need to do,'” he said.

“I think it’s very important for parents and caregivers to pay attention to what their kids do and who they’re talking to online.”