Mum warns of ‘awful’ Roblox content aimed at kids

A concerned mum has taken to Twitter to warn other parents about “freaking awful” content in Roblox that’s aimed at kids as young as five.

A concerned mother has shed light on shocking content available in Roblox, some of which is aimed at, and available to, children as young as five years old.

Games industry personality Carolyn “Velociraptor” took to Twitter in a thread that revealed a number of gross games in Roblox, a popular game platform among children. The platform allows players to create and share games, and has over 200 million active players, most of whom are younger players.

Roblox has age restrictions for certain types of content, which are split up into three categories: 13+, 9+, and All Ages. Carolyn claims in her thread that Roblox manually curates content for each of these categories.

Roblox says that content in the all ages category is “generally suitable for all ages,” but that it may contain infrequent mild violence or “light unrealistic blood”. Carolyn says that recent changes to Roblox’s approach to moderation have allowed “gross” games to get through.

Alright, I’m done. DONE.

I deleted my kids’ Roblox accounts, and recommend you guys do too.

I just spent six hours playing the games meant for 5-year-olds and it was freaking awful.

Something is very wrong with Roblox Corp.

Screenshots/video to follow.

— Carolyn Velociraptor ✨👾 (@Arumi_kai) January 4, 2023

Among them were a number of bathroom role-playing games, which have players interacting in digital bathrooms.

“These games are bathroom roleplay experiences,” Carolyn said, “You use the toilet. Your character’s bottom clothing item often disappears. The door stays open, and other players watch you. The toilet turns yellow/brown”.

In a number of these games, Carolyn noticed an area that forces player characters into a “reclined position”, and often players get stuck there. The thread has multiple videos showing other players acting out crude sexual acts on stuck players.

That’s not the only issue, however. A number of games in the all ages content category are graphic in nature, with some showing grotesque violence involving characters from children’s television shows. One particular example provided, called “Survive Pepa Piggy”, has artwork showing Peppa Pig characters wounded and bleeding out. This game, alongside many others like it, was tagged as being suitable for all ages.

A number of graphic Roblox games are tagged as being suitable for all ages, which is a category used for content available to children under 9. Picture: Roblox

Carolyn says that she deleted her kids’ Roblox accounts, and recommends other parents do too, calling the experience “freaking awful” and saying that “something is very wrong with Roblox Corp”.

Roblox is no stranger to controversy. The company was sued after the alleged sexual exploitation of an 11-year-old girl, alongside online chat company Discord.

Roblox is also the most hated app in 21 countries, according to a 2022 study by Electronics Hub. The study used a sentiment-tracking AI tool which aggregated tweets with a negative connotation to figure out which app was spoken about most negatively on social media.

Written by Oliver Brandt on behalf of GLHF.