COOK COUNTY, Ill. (WLS) — Roblox reaches some 85 million children a day, with half of them under the age of 13. Those are their numbers.
But with that popularity come risk. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against the company, accusing them creating a platform that makes it easy for predators to target kids. The latest one filed Wednesday involves a 9-year-old boy in Cook County.
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It’s one of the country’s most popular gaming platforms: Roblox. On it, users can play any number of games and communicate with friends.
But, what happens when the person on the other side of the chat is a stranger with ill-intent?
“We had a predator come in and say that he was a child the same age,” Dolman Law Group attorney Jamie Powers said. “Our 9-year-old client then sent explicit photos of himself of his body to the perpetrator.”
The child’s family has now filed what is the latest in a string of lawsuits against Roblox over the last year. They are all accusing the company of exposing children to sexual predators, that in at least one case led to kidnapping and sexual assault.
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“It’s such a huge part of our culture now,” Lurie Children’s Hospital technology support specialist Shane Rafferty said. “It’s a huge part of how our teens and pre-teens interact with each other. “
Rafferty is the person in charge of making sure the gaming experience is a safe one for patients at Lurie Children’s Hospital.
“We don’t want to remove that entirely, but we do want to set up safety barriers. Or at least be aware what they are interacting with,” Rafferty said.
The lawsuit was filed on the same day Roblox announced its worldwide rollout out a facial age estimation tool that allows users wanting to engage in private messaging and voice chats to verify their age on the platform using their cell phone’s camera.
“Our goal is to ensure that every user on the platform has an age-appropriate and civil experience. And the first part, the first part of that that we need to solve is making sure we have high confidence in everyone’s ages,” said Vice President Rajiv Bhatia, head of User and Discovery Product at Roblox.
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In a statement to ABC7, the company said ensuring their users safety is a top priority.
“This is why our policies are purposely stricter than those found on many other platforms,” the statement read. “We limit chat for younger users, don’t allow user-to-user image sharing, and have filters designed to block the sharing of personal information.”
And while some of these features are automatically set, Rafferty says it’s important parents continually monitor for updates, even after they’ve set up filters.
“Kids are very clever. They can find ways to circumvent stuff,” Rafferty said. “Just being aware what your kids are playing. Sitting with them. Watching them play. Talking with them because that will give you the best idea what they’re exposing themselves to.”
Roblox also says they understand that no system is perfect, and that is why they actively collaborate with law enforcement continue to seek ways to improve the platform’s safety tools and restrictions.
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