Australia Demands Roblox Improve Child Safety Measures

Australia's eSafety commissioner has called on Roblox to significantly improve its child safety measures, citing concerns over the platform's compliance with the country's Online Safety Act. The regulator has been investigating allegations that Roblox has insufficient measures to prevent contact between adults and children under 16.

Testing conducted by eSafety this year found that Roblox's existing safety protocols continue to put children at risk. Specifically, the regulator identified that adults could send connection requests to children, even if the child had not initiated contact first. This bypasses some existing safety settings designed to limit unsolicited contact.

Furthermore, eSafety's review indicated that the platform's content moderation systems were not adequately preventing harmful content or behavior targeting minors. The findings suggest that adult users could potentially groom or exploit child users on the platform despite Roblox's stated commitment to safety.

Roblox has stated it will implement further changes to its safety features in response to eSafety's feedback. The Australian regulator expects the company to demonstrate concrete improvements that effectively protect underage users as required by law.