Roblox to restrict messaging for under 13s, launches new safety measures

Roblox has announced new safety measures designed to protect young players on the popular gaming platform.

In a blog post, the company said that over the coming months it will begin restricting communication features for children under the of age 13, while new parental control features and content guidelines have launched today.

When the changes come into effect, users under the age of 13 will no longer be able to directly message others on Roblox outside of games.

“In addition, we are introducing a built-in setting that will limit users under age 13 to public broadcast messages only within a game or experience,” said chief safety officer Matt Kaufman. “By default, users younger than 13 will not be able to directly message others. Parents can change this setting in Parental Controls.”

Roblox has today launched remote management of parental controls. Previously, parental controls like spending limits needed to be managed from the child’s account.

“Part of our long-term vision is to give parents granular controls to monitor and limit how much time their child spends on Roblox, which is something we’ve heard is important to parents,” said Kaufman.

“In the Parental Controls dashboard, parents can now see their child’s average screen time over the past week, as well as their child’s friends list. Parents and caregivers can also set daily screen-time limits. Once the limit is reached, their child cannot access Roblox until the next day.”

Roblox has also launched new descriptions for the types of content available, with experiences labelled by the type of content users can expect to find in them rather than by age.

By default, users under the age of nine can only access experiences with a content label of ‘Minimal’ or ‘Mild’, unless parental controls are used to let them access more mature content.

‘Mild’ content “may contain repeated mild violence, heavy unrealistic blood, mild crude humor, and/or repeated mild fear,” according to Roblox.