Online gaming platform Roblox announced new safety features Thursday for teen users and their parents.
They will build on Roblox’s existing safety systems with investments in advanced machine learning with artificial intelligence, content moderation, and comprehensive parental controls.
These features include:
- Trusted Connections: Roblox is renaming Friends to Connections, and this subset will be eligible to users 13 and older who can connect and chat more freely with people they know and trust. The gaming platform is also introducing a new standard for communication between teens and users 18+.
- Age Estimation: Use of age estimation technology will help confirm users’ ages. It will be an optional feature, but individuals over 13 can still verify their identity with an ID and, in the future, provide verified parental consent. Age Estimation will also be a prerequisite to unlocking Trusted Connections.
- Privacy Tools: Roblox users will now have more options to manage notifications, screen time, and privacy settings.
- Insights for Parents of Teens: Parents will have access to transaction spend notifications, Connections and Trusted Connections insights, and screen time stats.
“Safety has always been foundational to everything we do at Roblox,” said Matt Kaufman, Roblox’s chief safety officer, in a blog post. “Our goal is to lead the world in safety and civility for online gaming.”
Some of the features announced by Roblox come on the heels of states around the U.S. and countries like the U.K. passing age-verification laws for gaming and mature content sites.
Roblox’s latest move also comes as it was sued in February, alongside Discord, for allegedly facilitating child sexual exploitation and abuse on their respective platforms.
The two companies were also accused of making it easy for online predators to find their next victims.
