The free multiplayer game site, Roblox, which mainly targets children and teenagers, is said to be infiltrated by online crooks. The English actress Claire Sweeney has warned in a series of tweets of the dangers that Roblox represents for young users and their parents.
“Parents, are your kids playing Roblox? Yesterday my son was playing and I saw in the chat that someone was asking him to pick up my bag, take my credit card and read the numbers. Roblox seems like a dangerous place for kids! Glad you told me!” the actress tweeted on Dec. 26 when alerted to the request by her son Jason. According to her, the scammers “said they knew everything about him, his age, his name, etc. The username was ‘Sorry.’
Roblox offers users to create Lego-shaped avatars and program their own games or play games created by other users. Players can also chat with each other via chat. However, some parents worry that children will not be safe and may fall prey to malicious adult gamers.
similar situations
In response to his tweet, many other parents testified about similar situations. In another tweet, Claire Sweeney shared a Roblox best practices guide for parents.
Another personality has also been a victim of abuse on Roblox. In April, a game developer posted an ad announcing a new Kim Kardashian sextape on the platform. Her 6-year-old son saw the ad in the game. Following this case, Roblox apologized and claimed that he had never hosted the video promised by this ad. “The video in question was never made available on our platform, we have a strict moderation policy to protect our community. It includes zero tolerance for sexual content of any kind that violates our Community Guidelines,” Roblox said in a press release.
There are a few tools available in Roblox to prevent the user from getting into troublesome situations: parental controls can be turned on to prevent strangers from coming in contact with the user, filters prevent the exchange of profanity or phone numbers, a button report is available in every game, so it is possible to report any disturbing content or abuse. Roblox has also changed the age range of some of their games to “9+” or “13+”.
Source: BFM TV
