Under fire for child safety risks, Roblox pledges stronger moderation tools to combat predators and safeguard younger players.
Roblox Corporation has announced new safety measures and content restrictions just days after the state of Louisiana filed a lawsuit alleging the platform is “overrun with harmful content and child predators.”
The company says that the changes, which focus on sexual content, age verification, and moderation technology, had been in development for some time, but are being shared earlier than planned due to growing concerns over child protection.
Stricter content rules and new labelling system
In the statement, Roblox chief safety officer Matt Kaufman said that the company is “making several important updates and clarifications to our tools and policies to help promote safety and civility on Roblox.”
“We’re clarifying our policy that prohibits romantic and sexual content to also explicitly prohibit content, settings, or behaviour that implies sexual activity,” Kaufman explained.
Unrated experiences, previously available to users aged 13 and over, will soon be limited to developers and collaborators working on them. To release these experiences publicly, creators must complete a Maturity & Compliance Questionnaire to receive a content maturity label. According to Kaufman, this will ensure “users and parents can easily identify which content is appropriate for them and their children.”
Age verification for social and adult spaces
The update also expands Roblox’s use of age verification. “We’re updating our policy to restrict social hangout experiences depicting private spaces (such as bedrooms and bathrooms) to users who are ID-verified and 17 or older,” Kaufman said.
“Additionally, experiences that primarily take place in these private spaces, and in settings intended for adults (such as bars and clubs), will also be restricted to only ID-verified users 17 or older. Developers looking to create an experience for users 17 or older must also verify that they are 17 or older.”
He noted that while beds or bathrooms appear in family-friendly simulations, “higher rates of inappropriate user behaviour” occur in hangouts designed around such settings. “We’ve designed the policy to carefully balance user safety and community creativity,” Kaufman added.
Promises of better moderation and safety tools
According to the statement, Roblox is also investing in new moderation systems to detect inappropriate behaviour in real time. “The goal of this tool is to detect violative user behaviour in otherwise policy-compliant experiences,” Kaufman explained.
For example, games with drawing tools may be compliant, but players can still create inappropriate content. “If this feature detects a server with a high volume of violative user behaviour, the system will automatically take that server down. Our team will then work with the developer to see if adjustments can be made to prevent that behaviour in the future.”
These updates complement existing measures, including age estimation, parental controls, and early detection features. Kaufman also announced the development of a community advisory council, with further details to be shared in the coming weeks.
Mounting Pressure on Roblox
Concerns about child safety on Roblox are longstanding, but recent events have intensified scrutiny. As first reported by PCGamer, a lawsuit filed against the company by Louisiana’s attorney general, Liz Murrill, describes the platform as “a breeding ground for sex predators.” The game has faced more scrutiny after Roblox’s CEO sent a cease and desist letter to YouTuber Schlep, who was known to be an online Predator Hunter in the game.
In parallel, US lawmaker Ro Khanna has filed a petition and called on Roblox to expand protections for children, improve parental support tools, and enhance cooperation with law enforcement.
The company acknowledged that the latest policy changes had been planned for some time, but said it was sharing the details sooner than expected due to heightened public attention. “We know constant progress in this area is as important to our community as it is to us,” Kaufman stated.
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