Roblox banning social hangouts for kids under 13 due to "user behaviour that can potentially pose a risk"

Roblox will make further changes to how its large audience of children interact with others on the platform, in response to growing safety fears.

The latest steps include a ban on users aged under 13 being able to access social hangout experiences in Roblox, beginning later this month. Additionally, though not until December, children will be blocked from seeing or playing experiences that have not been rated for their content.

Roblox says the change to kids being allowed into social hangout experiences will help “address user behaviour that can potentially pose a risk to our youngest users”.

In July, a Bloomberg report highlighted the 13,316 instances of child exploitation reported on Roblox in 2023 alone, and that two dozen people had been arrested for abusing minors following contact in Roblox. The following month, short-selling firm Hindenberg Research published further examples designed to highlight Roblox’s failure to keep children safe, in a report which labelled the platform as an “X-rated paedophile hellscape” rife with “grooming, pornography, violent content and extremely abusive speech”.