Roblox must be included in social media ban – or it’s already failed | Renee Chopping

Countless Aussie kids are hooked on Roblox but the game is a magnet for predators – and campaigner Renee Chopping says it must be included in the social media ban.

Australia’s new social media age delay is a landmark step toward recognising what parents, educators and child-safety advocates have been saying for years: the digital world isn’t built for kids.

This is a vital win for child safety, but without including platforms like Roblox – a “game” in name only – we risk leaving a loophole big enough for predators and exploitative design to slip through.

Roblox is not just a game. It’s an online universe of user-generated worlds where children can chat, build, befriend strangers, and buy and sell virtual goods. It’s social media in a gamer’s outfit – and one of the most blocked apps by parents worldwide.

Why? Because despite the playful branding and marketing spin, Roblox has a serious problem with violent and sexualised content, predatory behaviour and addictive design.

Experts are sounding the alarm on the threat posed by predators on the Roblox game. Picture: Getty Images

The platform’s business model depends on keeping kids online for as long as possible – jumping from one game or chat to the next for hours at a time. Parents describe trying to get their child off Roblox as “like dragging them out of a party that never ends.”

This isn’t child’s play – it’s commercialised attention-harvesting, the same model that fuels social media giants like TikTok and Instagram.

Roblox’s greatest selling point – that anyone can create and share their own world – is also its biggest risk.

With over 80 million daily users, moderation is an impossible task. For every innocent universe created, there’s another world built around violence, sexual themes or grooming behaviour. Even Roblox’s own moderators can’t keep up.

Renee Chopping from Collective Shout is calling for Roblox to be included in the social media ban.

When parents find their 10-year-old has been invited into a “strip club” world or exposed to sexualised avatars, they’re told to adjust privacy settings. But no filter can fix a business model that monetises constant interaction and exposure.

This is why so many parents now block Roblox altogether. They’re exhausted from trying to outsmart a billion-dollar platform that makes parental control intentionally complicated. Even Roblox’s new ‘parent accounts’ and ‘age guidelines’ rely on one thing: the child’s co-operation. The moment a parent restricts access, kids can simply create a new account in minutes. Why is the burden always on families to clean up corporate negligence?

Including Roblox in the age delay is one lever the government can use to shift responsibility back to where it belongs – with the platforms profiting from children’s attention.

Parents are doing their best to raise kids in a digital wild west, but they shouldn’t have to battle exploitative design and predatory strangers at the same time. By setting a national standard that applies to any platform with social-networking features, we take a real step toward corporate responsibility.

Roblox’s defenders insist it’s a “gaming platform”, not social media, so shouldn’t face the same regulation. But when your product allows children to chat with strangers, join social hangouts, flirt via avatars, and spend time in worlds created by popular streamers or brand-backed creators, you’ve crossed into social media territory.

If it behaves like social media, treat it like social media.

The average Australian child spends more than two hours a day on Roblox. Many have been groomed, exploited, bullied or exposed to sexualised content.

In one Australian case, an 11-year-old girl disclosed that her in-game character was sexually assaulted and described it as if it had happened to her – because children experience their avatars as extensions of themselves. Others simply can’t log off.

If that doesn’t meet the definition of a high-risk environment, what does?

Melinda Tankard Reist from Collective Shout, which has had some significant wins against big tech companies. Picture: NCA Newswire/Gary Ramage

We have the data, the lawsuits, and the lived experiences of parents and survivors telling us the same story: this is not a safe space for children.

Excluding Roblox from the under-16 age delay would leave a gaping hole in child protection policy – one that predators and profit-hungry platforms are only too happy to exploit.

We must recognise Roblox for what it is – a social media giant in disguise. If we’re serious about protecting kids online, it belongs under the same legislation.

Collective Shout is a grassroots campaigns movement against the objectification of women and the sexualisation of children in media, advertising and popular culture. Through public campaigns and strategic partnerships, it holds corporations, marketers and media accountable while driving cultural change that upholds the value of women and children.

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Originally published as Roblox must be included in social media ban – or it’s already failed | Renee Chopping