If they were selling a monthly PedoPass that gave someone access to the names and addresses of underage members, of course we should shut that shit down, but nearly every other online game has chat options. What makes Roblox less safe than those?
Roblox chat is so restrictive that it routinely makes it difficult to talk about normal things. My daughter has spent a ton of time on Roblox (while being prohibited from many other things including unfettered YouTube, for context) and I really don’t see what the fuss is about. I’ve played with her on and off for years, it has always struck me as a generally safe platform, and I’m both sensitive and clued in about the topic.
Anything with user numbers like Roblox is going to attract the darkest corners of the internet, that’s unavoidable. It doesn’t strike me that there’s anything particularly dangerous about Roblox beyond that fact, they seem to manage it well and actually the platform seems pretty safe all things considered.
I think a lot of the hate is coming from people who don’t understand Roblox. It’s just this weird new thing that kids are playing. They said the same kind of things about my Mortal Kombat, D&D, and Magic:tG.
I certainly have my complaints on Roblox, mainly the concept of Robucks and how the community members design games to milk children for their birthday money.
Oh, also - largely with you on Robux. I mean I don’t have a problem with it in principle, ideally it lets kids (through their parents) effectively choose which games and creators to support, and there have lately been some big games with big frequent updates that kids have found to be super enjoyable. Like, content updates at rates traditional games would be embarrassed by.
But like all things involving $, I’m sure there’s lots of eventual exploitation. And manipulation of kids to want to buy is definitely bad. But then again, by my measure, kids need to be instructed on recognizing and resisting precisely that from a young age. That manipulation is everywhere and getting worse all the time.
You’re probably right, I’ve once or twice (from an older account) asked a user to elaborate or give specifics, after they’d made some wild claims about safety, never gotten anything.
I do know of at least one truly hideous group of people using the platform as communication and recruitment to some really horrendous (life ruining) stuff, maybe this article references that too. But again, that’s a problem of sufficiently large user bases (especially of kids). Among millions of users it’s mathematically not realistic to prevent every possible group in the size of dozens from congregating to attempt their awful shit. Motivated humans are good at overcoming even well-designed systems.
We’re certainly right to care about safety though, and I do want to know if Roblox is less safe than I imagine.
I agree completely.
Did Roblox do anything “unreasonably unsafe?”
If they were selling a monthly PedoPass that gave someone access to the names and addresses of underage members, of course we should shut that shit down, but nearly every other online game has chat options. What makes Roblox less safe than those?
Roblox chat is so restrictive that it routinely makes it difficult to talk about normal things. My daughter has spent a ton of time on Roblox (while being prohibited from many other things including unfettered YouTube, for context) and I really don’t see what the fuss is about. I’ve played with her on and off for years, it has always struck me as a generally safe platform, and I’m both sensitive and clued in about the topic.
Anything with user numbers like Roblox is going to attract the darkest corners of the internet, that’s unavoidable. It doesn’t strike me that there’s anything particularly dangerous about Roblox beyond that fact, they seem to manage it well and actually the platform seems pretty safe all things considered.
I think a lot of the hate is coming from people who don’t understand Roblox. It’s just this weird new thing that kids are playing. They said the same kind of things about my Mortal Kombat, D&D, and Magic:tG.
I certainly have my complaints on Roblox, mainly the concept of Robucks and how the community members design games to milk children for their birthday money.
Oh, also - largely with you on Robux. I mean I don’t have a problem with it in principle, ideally it lets kids (through their parents) effectively choose which games and creators to support, and there have lately been some big games with big frequent updates that kids have found to be super enjoyable. Like, content updates at rates traditional games would be embarrassed by.
But like all things involving $, I’m sure there’s lots of eventual exploitation. And manipulation of kids to want to buy is definitely bad. But then again, by my measure, kids need to be instructed on recognizing and resisting precisely that from a young age. That manipulation is everywhere and getting worse all the time.
You’re probably right, I’ve once or twice (from an older account) asked a user to elaborate or give specifics, after they’d made some wild claims about safety, never gotten anything.
I do know of at least one truly hideous group of people using the platform as communication and recruitment to some really horrendous (life ruining) stuff, maybe this article references that too. But again, that’s a problem of sufficiently large user bases (especially of kids). Among millions of users it’s mathematically not realistic to prevent every possible group in the size of dozens from congregating to attempt their awful shit. Motivated humans are good at overcoming even well-designed systems.
We’re certainly right to care about safety though, and I do want to know if Roblox is less safe than I imagine.
I think there’s a scenario where they had sufficient enough measures in place, but I guess that will be shown through the lawsuit.