In a tweet, English actress Claire Sweeney wanted to warn parents about the dangers of the games site Roblox after her son was targeted by online thieves.
The free multiplayer games site, Roblox mainly aimed at children and teenagers, is said to be infiltrated by online thieves. English actress Claire Sweeney has warned in a series of tweets of the dangers that Roblox represents for young users and their parents.
“Parents, are your kids playing Roblox? Yesterday my son was playing, and I saw on chat that someone was asking him to pick up my purse, take my credit card, and read the numbers! Roblox seems like a dangerous place for kids. Glad he told me!” the actress tweeted on Dec. 26 as her son Jason alerted her to the request. According to her, the scammers “said they knew everything about him, his age, his name, etc. The username was ‘Unfortunate’.
Roblox offers users to create Lego-shaped avatars and program their own games or play games created by other users. Players can also chat with each other via chat. However, some parents worry that the children are not safe and fall prey to ill-intentioned adult gamers.
Similar situations
In response to his tweet, many other parents testified to similar situations. In another tweet, Claire Sweeney shared a Roblox best practices guide for parents.
Another personality has also been the victim of abuse on Roblox. Back in April, a developer of the game included an ad announcing a new Kim Kardashian sextape on the platform. His 6-year-old son saw the advertisement in the game. Following this case, Roblox apologized and assured that it had never hosted the video promised by this advertisement. “The video in question was never available on our platform, we have a strict moderation policy to protect our community. It includes zero tolerance for sexual content of any kind that violates our Community Guidelines” , assured Roblox in a press release.
A few tools are available on Roblox to prevent the user from getting into problematic situations: parental controls can be activated to prevent strangers from coming into contact with the user, filters prevent the exchange of swear words or phone numbers, a report button is available on each game, so it is possible to report any disturbing content or abuse. Roblox has also changed the age range of some of their games to “over 9” or “over 13”.
