Roblox introduces new kids accounts (and age verification) to improve safety
Roblox has been popular with kids for a very long time, but some of those kids might soon get locked out of their favorite content.
That's because the popular online game creation and sharing tool is rolling out specific, age-gated accounts for younger users in early June, per an official press release. The move is part of a larger push to improve safety on Roblox, after the company faced backlash and legal action for allegedly failing to protect young users from child predators lurking on the platform.
The new accounts are called Roblox Kids and Roblox Select, with the former existing for users between the ages of 5 and 8, and the latter for users between 9 and 16. Roblox Kids accounts can only play games with "Minimal" or "Mild" content ratings, while Select accounts can access "Moderate" games. Chat is also off by default for Kids accounts and "gradually introduced with safeguards" for Select accounts.
Roblox will enforce all of this in one of two ways: Either users will submit to an age verification system, or linked parental accounts will set an age for the child's account. Anyone who refuses to submit to an age check will automatically be placed into a Kids account.
The press release didn't go into detail about the age verification system, so there may be privacy concerns once it actually rolls out. Roblox said that it will track an account's age over time, so anyone who ages out of a Kids or Select account in real life will also age out of it in the game.
It should also be noted that Roblox will only let Kids and Select accounts play games that have been vetted through a three-step program that includes ID verification for the developers and a pass through Roblox's moderation system.
Even with the potential for privacy problems related to age verification, all of this is arguably overdue for Roblox. As Mashable has covered in the past, Roblox started adopting more safety measures a couple of years ago. However, these tools often required active parental involvement, rather than restricting access for young users across the board.
Age verification critics warn that the practice can be a threat to both privacy and freedom of speech.