A tech journalist has said that in his entire career he has never seen a company with “such a disregard for basic safety” as online gaming platform Roblux. 

Roblox allows users to design and play their own games or those created by other users. 

The platform has recently enjoyed a boom in popularity levels with children but many parents are worried about safeguarding.  

On The Hard Shoulder, tech journalist Emmet Ryan said he shared those concerns. 

“It should be a really fun learning environment and I may be looking at a company in my 20 plus years of being a tech journalist that has never had such a disregard for basic safety,” he said. 

“And, as a result, its own basic potential commercial future.” 

Mr Ryan added that it is currently “too easy” for children to talk to people. 

“Safety settings are meant to be that anyone under 13 shouldn’t be talking to anyone of that age or older,” he said. 

“We’ve found that Roblox has not managed to do that very well.

“Most other platforms have at least taken some measures - I’m not saying they all work - to actually try and make sure it works. 

“Roblox uses the, ‘We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas system’.”

A problem as old as the internet

Mr Ryan recalled that children safeguarding issues have been around for almost as long as social media has been. 

“We can go back to Bebo,” he said. 

“Even when that was around, [they] realised how big of an issue this was going to be and very quickly more than half of its staff were employed in safety.” 

Mr Ryan added that even putting moral questions aside, firms should consider their commercial interests as well. 

“For a company like Roblox, which relies so much on such a young user base, not having tip top application in safety can be devastating,” he said.  

“It’s like if you were an airline and you were known for your planes crashing; your kids may be your main user base but your main source of income is their parents - the people paying for the pay as you go add ons or ‘Robuxs’.

“If the parents don’t trust this platform, no matter what the kids try and do to get around it to play it for free, they certainly are not going to be getting access to their parents’ credit cards.” 

Roblux has been contacted for comment.

Main image: Roblox logo. Picture by: Alamy.com