Ethan Dallas was targeted by an adult sexual predator on Roblox when he was 12, and later on Discord, according to a lawsuit. He took his own life last year.
Why? It’s idiotic to force age verification and an ID to play games on the internet, and I’m assuming the kid didn’t just click a button to turn off parental controls. He probably got his parents to do it. Liability shouldn’t be pushed off to others every time something bad happens. This is the groomers fault. Not a game company or an internet provider or anyone else. Hell; why not sue Intel for making a processor that allowed the game to be played and discord to be used? Do you also expect every startup game company and Indy dev to have millions of dollars worth of chat security and oversight? Shit like this is nothing but a money grab.
This isn’t an age verification problem, its a moderation problem. A massive one. There’s hundreds of games that exist almost entirely for the purpose of grooming ppl (a common one is so called “bathroom simulators” iirc) and roblox frequently doesnt do anything about them until there’s public outcry about ine particular game, no matter how many reports come in or how obvious it is.
Game companies shouldn’t have to monitor and supervise children. Each kid already has adults legally responsible for them. It isn’t a g companies job to do someone else’s job for them, nor be financially responsible for criminals or parenting.
A game made for kids should not allow sexually explicit material on their platform. And, in fact, they don’t, this kind of content is very clearly and explicitly against roblox’s content policy but they fail to enforce it.
Parents fail all the time, that’s when the government needs to step in and take action, in this case by making sure kids can safely play the game. And I disagree, Roblox’s entire business revolves around children, they make money off them at every step and they even pay kids to make content for their platform; they should be and they are rightfully being held accountable for what happens on their platform.
Why? It’s idiotic to force age verification and an ID to play games on the internet, and I’m assuming the kid didn’t just click a button to turn off parental controls. He probably got his parents to do it. Liability shouldn’t be pushed off to others every time something bad happens. This is the groomers fault. Not a game company or an internet provider or anyone else. Hell; why not sue Intel for making a processor that allowed the game to be played and discord to be used? Do you also expect every startup game company and Indy dev to have millions of dollars worth of chat security and oversight? Shit like this is nothing but a money grab.
This isn’t an age verification problem, its a moderation problem. A massive one. There’s hundreds of games that exist almost entirely for the purpose of grooming ppl (a common one is so called “bathroom simulators” iirc) and roblox frequently doesnt do anything about them until there’s public outcry about ine particular game, no matter how many reports come in or how obvious it is.
Game companies shouldn’t have to monitor and supervise children. Each kid already has adults legally responsible for them. It isn’t a g companies job to do someone else’s job for them, nor be financially responsible for criminals or parenting.
A game made for kids should not allow sexually explicit material on their platform. And, in fact, they don’t, this kind of content is very clearly and explicitly against roblox’s content policy but they fail to enforce it.
Parents fail all the time, that’s when the government needs to step in and take action, in this case by making sure kids can safely play the game. And I disagree, Roblox’s entire business revolves around children, they make money off them at every step and they even pay kids to make content for their platform; they should be and they are rightfully being held accountable for what happens on their platform.