Roblox's 'Trusted Connections' Provides Conversational Freedom For Users, But Sparks Worry About It's Younger Playerbase
Roblox, the still ever-massive, game creating and sharing online game, has announced a new plan for the way the game will handle both User's friends list, and censorship in conversations within the game.
Revealed by the company a few days prior, it has confirmed that ‘Friends’ will now be called ‘Connections’. With this name change, comes a new system for close friends to communicate, with inappropriate censorship for language and identified personal details being lifted, ‘Trusted Connections'.
To use this feature however, comes with a caveat. Users must confirm they are 13 years or older, by submitting an video of their face for facial scanning by an AI, which Safety Officer Matt Kaufman states is ‘analyzed against a large and diverse dataset’, all to prove with high accuracy that the user is 13 or above. If it cannot, the User must then submit further information via a form of identification for manual review. Alongside this, parental consent would be needed for further activity. It has been confirmed that data collected will be deleted after 30 days, unless required by law to be kept secure.
As many have pointed out, first thoughts go straight to child safety. Whilst users age 13 to 17 can add anyone to trusted connections in this age group, anyone 18 or over can only be added if known in real life by the user, via means such as a QR code in person. Roblox states they are fully aware of the potential risks to young users with this new feature, stating conversations will be widely monitored for:
Manipulation of Minors.
Harm and/or sexual harassment, abuse or sexualisation of Minors.
Request of any content of a harmful or sexual nature from a Minor.
Any attempt of distribution of child sexual abuse material.
Whilst this one paper is great to hear from the company whose majority playerbase is children/teenagers, predatory behaviour has been reported on Roblox prior. As well as this, whilst this will indeed lessen such behaviour from taking place, it also opens itself up to new ways for predators to contact young users in a situation between just them. Roblox themselves have also announced a new feature allowing users to allow who gets to see if they are online. Paired with the data collection of what would possibly be thousands of video data of children via AI and it's ‘thirty day’ deletion promise, as well as further personal information possibly needed for review manually, it is hard to not be pessimistic about such an update, knowing the evil some will go to to hurt and manipulate children who play the game.
Time will hopefully prove the system to be water tight. However, parents of children who play the game, remain vigilant, and monitor your child's play-time if needed/if a change of behaviour is seen. Help make Roblox safe for it's younger playerbase.
