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Communications Minister Anika Wells has written to controversial video game giant Roblox seeking an urgent meeting following reports that children on the popular platform have been exposed to sexually explicit and suicide-related material.
Roblox, which boasts more than 150 million daily users worldwide, was carved out of Australia’s social media ban even though Australian Federal Police said last year that it was among platforms that had been infiltrated by right-wing extremists and Islamic State propaganda, and was used by sadistic gangs goading young girls to harm themselves.
While eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said last year that Roblox could not be included in the ban as its primary purpose was gaming, not social media, Wells has asked Inman Grant what she can do under her powers to clamp down on abusers, including a revision of games’ PG rating.
In an extract of the letter to Roblox provided by Wells’ office, she writes that she is “alarmed by reports of children being exposed to graphic and gratuitous user-generated content on the platform, including sexually explicit and suicidal material”.
She goes on to say she was spurred to seek the meeting in part by news reports last week that a 27-year-old Queensland man had been charged with 596 offences relating to 259 children he is alleged to have groomed through social media and gaming platforms.
Roblox has, since last November, rolled out age verification controls aimed at restricting its chat function to users of similar ages, with no ability to message if users don’t use the facial recognition age service.
However, there are widespread reports of teens fooling the verification tools and signing up as adults.
In the letter, Wells tells Roblox that as “these issues appear to persist”, she wants to meet company representatives to find out what steps they are taking to make their platform safe for younger users.
“The reports we’ve been hearing about children being exposed to graphic content on Roblox, and predators actively using the platform to groom young people, are horrendous. Something must be done – now,” Wells said in a statement.
“Australian parents and children expect more from Roblox. They can and must do more to protect kids, and when we meet I’ll be asking how they propose to do that.
“These sorts of harms show why we need a digital duty of care, which will place the onus on digital platforms to proactively keep their users, particularly children, safe.”
In a statement, Roblox said it was the first large online gaming platform to require facial recognition age checks for all users.
“Roblox has robust safety policies to help protect users that go beyond many other platforms, and advanced safeguards that monitor for harmful content and communications,” it said.
“We have filters designed to block the sharing of personal information, don’t allow user-to-user image or video sharing, and recently rolled out age checks globally to limit kids and teens to only chatting with others of similar age by default.
“We also work closely with Australian law enforcement to support their investigations. While no system is perfect, our commitment to safety never ends, and we continue to strengthen protections to help keep users safe.”
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