A creative platform on which users can develop experiences, exchange them and monetize them, Roblox must regularly adapt its terms of use to make the content as suitable as possible for the audience. In October, an update of the Community Standards had caused a lot of talk, since it prohibited the presence of “romance” type content in created games. Kisses between characters were thus prohibited, they can no longer hold hands, and it is now impossible to create things illustrating weddings, dates, or honeymoons.
Measures that aim to protect minors from abuse, but this is obviously far from enough for members of the YouTube channel, which had previously accused Roblox Corp of exploiting young developers. Recently, the channel highlighted potential new issues, which would affect the safety of underage players. The new investigation begins by indicating that Roblox’s popularity would push players to come together to form true development teams, which are organized outside the game and are therefore not controlled by Roblox Corp.
More problematic, the holders of an account in particular can have full control over the revenue generated by a game, which potentially was developed by several people under the same banner. Roblox Corp responded by stating that it constantly monitored reports of abuse, and that she did not hesitate to ban the offending accounts.
Further in the investigation, People Make Games points to the moderation of the platform, stating that children had too easy access to experiences that were not intended for them at all. This is reminiscent of the closure in 2017 of official forums, on which swarmed links leading potential victims to child pornography sites. In the absence of an official forum, some of the creators are found on Discord or other equivalent media, preventing Roblox from intervening and enforcing its rules.
Even more problematic according to People Make Games: how the sale of skins and other cosmetic items is handled. Some of these items, offered on a limited basis, are sometimes sold for more than $ 15,000 while they are generally offered for $ 5 to $ 10. The online store behaves like a stock market, which can be a real trap for minors. Furthermore, a real black market would have developed around Roblox, and it would be very widely used by Roblox players. These external sites sometimes contain malicious forms that Roblox cannot regulate either.
Everyone uses these sites (…). Of course, people who are caught with their hands in the bag see their accounts banned, so Roblox has to watch this somewhat, but at the same time, most people turn to this because Devex (the term for officially converting currency Virtual Real Money Robux) is sort of a bet in the first place !, an anonymous source told the YouTube channel.
We also encourage our users to keep their interactions and communications on the platform where we are able to monitor and intervene. Often times, scams and other abuse occur off the platform on other sites with less stringent systems – such as text filters – which is why it is expressly against our policies to direct them. offsite users, Roblox replied.
