According to Fast Company, Roblox is implementing mandatory age verification for users who want to privately message other players and will create age-based chat restrictions that separate kids, teens, and adults into different communication groups. The company had previously announced the age estimation tool back in July, which is provided by a third-party company called Persona and requires players to submit video selfies that are deleted after processing. Users under 13 already can’t chat with others outside games without explicit parental permission, and unlike many platforms, Roblox doesn’t encrypt private chats specifically so it can monitor them. These moves come as the gaming platform faces increasing lawsuits over child safety and as multiple states and countries implement new age verification laws.
Legal pressure mounts
Here’s the thing – Roblox isn’t doing this out of pure altruism. They’re facing serious lawsuits and regulatory pressure that’s becoming impossible to ignore. Louisiana just filed a major lawsuit alleging the platform enabled child exploitation, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. When lawyers start circling and states pass laws requiring age verification, companies suddenly find religion about safety. It’s basically adapt or face potentially devastating legal consequences.
privacy-concerns-loom”>Privacy concerns loom
Now, about that video selfie requirement. Roblox says the videos get deleted after processing, but how many times have we heard similar promises from tech companies that later faced data breaches or mission creep? Persona, the third-party handling this, now becomes a massive repository of children’s biometric data. And we’re supposed to just trust that everything gets properly deleted? I’m skeptical. Once you create systems that collect facial data, the temptation to find other uses for it becomes overwhelming. There’s already growing concern about age verification requirements creating new privacy risks across the internet.
Moderation reality check
So Roblox doesn’t encrypt chats specifically to monitor them – that’s actually a rare case of a platform being honest about surveillance for safety purposes. But let’s be real: automated moderation at this scale is incredibly difficult. How effective can their systems really be when dealing with millions of daily conversations across different languages and cultural contexts? And while age-gating sounds good in theory, determined bad actors will find ways around it. They always do. This feels like playing whack-a-mole with safety issues rather than solving the fundamental problem.
Industry shift underway
The bigger picture here is that we’re seeing a fundamental shift in how platforms approach child safety. For years, the dominant philosophy was “move fast and break things” – now regulators are making companies clean up their mess. But I wonder if we’re just creating new problems while solving old ones. We’re trading immediate safety concerns for long-term privacy risks, and children’s data becomes the currency. It’s a messy compromise, and honestly, I’m not convinced we’re getting the balance right.
