I’m very against Roblox. I know a kid who had a really hard time with online predators and a lot of it stated with Roblox. He’s 19 now. He and I were talking about it recently.

Parents think Roblox is like Minecraft bc of the aesthetics of the game. But, Roblox is not a game with a chat feature, it’s a chat room with some games. That’s a big difference.

They have 380 million users. Around 60% of the user base is under the age of 16. 40% is under the age of 12. That’s 152 million mostly unmonitored kids.

I’m sure Roblox has gotten better moderation during that time, but in our experience predators meet kids on Roblox and get them to exchange Discord or other contact info with them.

Discord is also a problem here, but that’s for another rant in another thread. If you are concerned about your kids and want to discuss it with me, feel free to message me.

TLDR: DO NOT LET YOUR KIDS PLAY ROBLOX unless you are actively monitoring the game.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 5 points 5 days ago (17 children)

The younger kid's chat is disabled. not allowed to friend anyone.

The older kid has chat enabled, but is only allowed to friend people we vet.

Computers are in an open area, chats have been keylogged, we check occasionally.

If friends show up unanounced, or they chat where they're not supposed to, they lose internet access long enough to regret it

When they get old enough to have friends online, we contact the parents, make sure they're compatible politically, theologogically, just generally not extremists and their kids have some base level of dicipline and are safety minded.

We also semi-regularly play with them and set rules about the appropriateness of the games in relation to the kids ages. The younger one's don't get to play the violent ones.

[–] Dozzi92@lemmy.world 17 points 4 days ago (4 children)

Crazy, but it's almost like parenting can make the environment safer!

Lemmy likes to portray Roblox the same way the 10pm news portrayed the Internet when I was in my preteens and teen years, like it was the wild west, everyone was a predator, etc. I let my kids hop on. Their friends include me, their mom (who has an account for some reason), each other, and the kids who live across the street. They like to play the platformers, and they invite me sometimes and we play them.

They'll get older and they'll go explore the internet the same way I did. I spent my adolescence and teen years eventually in AIM chat rooms, then forums, and thn Skyping random people, and somehow didn't become a terrorist, didn't get predated. I also am of the school of thought that you need to learn things on your own, rather than have no exposure to things that could potentially be bad.

[–] grendel84@tiny.tilde.website 2 points 4 days ago

@Dozzi92
it's also important to remember that different kids have different needs. Some kids can handle it fine, others may be more at risk due to past trauma or developmental delays.

I do agree it's all about teaching them safety and guiding them rather than forever sheltering them.

What's most dangerous is completely leaving them to fend for themselves.
@rumba

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