Correction
Roblox [...] preys on children
this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
288 points (98.3% liked)
Technology
59588 readers
2914 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Can we also put all microtransaction + lootbox garbage in the same classification of vile predatory capitalism.
Always has been!
They built an empire on exploiting and skirting child labour laws. Literally. Their business model is exploiting children and profit. Kids code the games. Then get nothing or a few hundred which to a kid, is all the money in the world.
Capitalism still great? 🫠
Don't forget that when they do hit it big and get lucky, they often spend the robux they earned back into the platform.
The We Make Games documentary on Roblox interviewed a kid who made $20k USD or something like that off his game. Never cashed it out and bought a bunch of cosmetics in the shop he's stuck with, and he's kicking himself for it now.
Ha I saw that doc! That’s kinda what sent me down a Roblox rabbit hole and some of the allegations range from just wild to downright blood boiling.
Surprise, the game company which does next to fuck all to stop predators grooming kids on their app... turns out they were also up to no good.
My niece was groomed on roblox aged 10 by a Russian man. From what I gather, she's just one of many to have been abused through this game.
Can you elaborate on how it happened? My daughter is allowed to play on roblox but we have locked down the account with parental controls (as well as the phone). She can only add friends that she knows in real life, and no chatting through the game, only voice through a phone call.
I'd be interested to hear so I can see any cracks in my system.
Sorry, I wish I could share more info but my sister didn't share much with me beyond the details of what happened.
He got her to take a topless pic, then blackmailed her that he'd tell her mum if she didn't send more. Thank fuck she came forward to her mum sooner rather than later. Social services / child protection had to get involved, my sister was devastated as they made her feel like it was all her fault, and she felt she'd let her daughter down... obv as parent she has some responsibility but many people just weren't aware of the tactics determined paedos use to get close to their kids online 7 years ago. She certainly isn't a "be quiet and play with your iPad" parent, she's a fantastic mum but dropped the ball with that one thing.
I guess it's super, super, super important to have open lines of communication and normalise discussing 'icky' things, so that the kids know exactly what to look out for. Good on you for taking stringent measures.
Its why its inportant to always stress that online interactions arent regulated ratings wise. If any game or application has someone who can talk to another person, gotta do due dilligence on that.
Shit like the pedos using flipnote(an application on the nintendo 3ds) to talk to kids that was later canned for the most part in japan.
Finally, was wondering when it would start to crumble after PMG exposed just how exploitative that gaming platform is to kids
There’s also areas that are sexual in nature. I hope they close down.
Wow that's hectic. What examples do you have?
There was that kim Kardashian sex tape on there. Look it up it really happened
This like the loot crates style gambling, or the more casino style gambling?
It'd be fucking great to see some action taken against the loot crate cancer, not just because it's predatory gambling aimed at minors, but because it's destroyed the quality of the gaming industry's products... the latter obviously not being grounds for legal action, but as a consumer, fuck that noise.
Roblox may not be hosting the gambling sites but they certainly don't seem to be trying to stop them. I thought there would be a bunch of hoops you would need to jump through in order to deposit Robux into the gambling site but it just straight up removes it from your Roblox account balance. Is there any legitimate reason as to why that's a feature? My old account got hacked like 10 years ago and they had more security in place for removing Robux than they do now, at least then they had to deposit all mine into a group and then cash it out, you couldn't just have it removed.