Sandbox MMORPG Roblox is looking at new ways to wipe out the long-standing problem of virtual sex parties taking place on its platform.
The game has been around since 2012, and is now suffering a growing problem – literally – that first generation of players is still playing, but now there’s teenage hormones involved and it’s making life more difficult for newer, younger players to be in a safe environment.
In a world where, by Roblox’s own estimates, over half of its users are under-18, with a large chunk of those players being pre-teen, the team behind the app recognize the games moral responsibility to keep things safe for all users.
In an interview with Fast Company, CEO and co-creator David Baszucki, explains that while platforms like his are “a new category of human co-experience and freedom”, they also represent a “unique opportunity to be its shepherds.”
Roblox has a robust, but far from impenetrable system for safeguarding young users – places like “The Condo” are hosting orgies and “The Cons” offers a complete sex dungeon, so clearly the system has its flaws.
With the less savory content held on private services and linked through the site messaging/social system, Discord, it’s sometimes a challenge to keep it under control. It’s not out-and-out illegal to have adult content on Roblox, but it certainly shouldn’t be accessible to under-18s, and should be clearly marked.
Yet, Roblox doesn’t verify a user’s age when they sign up, so everyone gets access to everything.
Roblox hasn’t come forth with data about how many people it thinks are accessing inappropriate content, nor does it commit to how long it has known there’s an issue.
Alas, the problem isn’t confined to Roblox. The fact is, wherever there’s a chance for the public to exercise free will on a platform, a proportion of that will always involve sexual material.
The difficulty now for Roblox is to find a way to police the problem. Ideally, this sort of thing would be removed, to protect minors – but not all adults are interested in migrating to the likes of Nutaku and other dedicated ‘adult’ gaming apps. Where users are found to be hosting content that’s against the rules, they’re removed – and Roblox has been specifically praised by many organisations for the measures it does have in place to protect children.
Nonetheless, you only have to go back to 2012, the same year Roblox started, to see reports of pornography and sex-talk in Habbo, another platform with more than a few similarities to Roblox.
When even Animal Crossing’s walled garden has been penetrated, one has to wonder if anywhere can be 100 percent safe, 100 percent of the time.
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