Roblox, the digital games platform popular with children and tweens, has introduced what it called "significant updates" to parental controls and will stop children younger than 13 from directly messaging other gamers.
In a raft of security and safety measures announced Monday, parents will now be able to access controls, set spend limits and monitor their child's activity remotely without needing access to the child's account or device.
Some of the changes will happen Monday, while others are expected next year. According to its 2023 annual report, the company had 68.4 million average daily users, 14.5 million of whom made some form of payment, and it made $2.8 billion in revenue last year.
Parents will be able to see exactly how much time is spent on Roblox games, as well as their child's friends list, and will also be able to set a daily limit on the screen time that can't be exceeded.
The changes come after the service faced a number of negative headlines in recent years as it exploded in popularity.
Roblox features a vast number of colorful and anarchic games and "experiences," many of which are made by users themselves and often involves real-time messaging between players.
But anyone younger than 13 will by default no longer be able to send direct messages, the company said, unless a parent or guardian changes the setting. Younger users will be able to send "broadcast-only" messages during games.
"We are always working to make chat incredibly safe and are exploring new ways for users of all ages to communicate and interact safely on Roblox," Matt Kaufman, Roblox's chief safety officer, said in a blog post announcing the new controls.
Roblox will also launch new content labels designed to make it easier to decide what is age-appropriate. The four new categories are "minimal," "mild," "moderate," and the strongest category, "restricted," which could include "strong violence, heavy realistic blood, moderate crude humor."
Users younger than 9 can only access the "minimal" or "mild" content and need parental consent for "moderate." The company said it would send an alert to the parent when a child is approaching a milestone that could change their age-based settings.
On Monday, the company acknowledged the challenge it faces in keeping its young userbase safe online.
"We are fundamentally a platform for play, which differs from other places on the internet, where the focus is on browsing or consuming content," Kaufman wrote in the blog post. "Since the day we launched, we’ve had a growing population of younger users and we want to help keep them safe on Roblox. We take safety extremely seriously."
Last month, a 2-month-old boy was seriously injured when a 10-year-old girl dropped him onto a tiled floor after being instructed through Roblox by a 36-year-old woman, police said.
A report last month from New York-based analyst firm Hindenberg Research called Roblox an "X-rated pedophile hellscape, exposing children to grooming, pornography, violent content and extremely abusive speech."
Roblox strongly denied this accusation in a lengthy statement and called the report misleading, citing its heavy investment in trust and safety measures.
