Roblox co-founder and CEO Dave Baszucki has a message for parents who are concerned that the games platform is an exploitative place that makes money off of child labor and exposes their kids to online harm, toxicity, predators, and extremist violence: Just keep them off of it.
“My first message would be, if you’re not comfortable, don’t let your kids be on Roblox. That sounds a little counter-intuitive, but I would always trust parents to make their own decisions.”
That direct quote comes from a BBC interview with Baszucki, who insists that “tens of millions” have had “amazing experiences” on the platform, that the corporation is utilizing multiple tools – many of which are AI-driven – to enforce safety, and that it offers robust parental controls as well as acts on reports of those who break “civility,” from timeouts to contacting law enforcement.
Baszucki dug in his heels about Roblox’s safety when the BBC presented evidence of how simple it is for users of different ages to use the platform to arrange meet-ups outside of Roblox and a list of games on the platform including “Late Night Boys And Girls Club RP” and “Shoot down planes… because why not?” On the former matter, he claims Roblox is so safe that people felt compelled to use other platforms, while on the latter he argues that moderation zeroes in on “not just […] the title of the experience [but] on the content of the experience as well.”
Baszucki also compares himself to Walt Disney, saying that building Roblox is “a little like having the opportunity he had a long time ago when he was designing the Magic Kingdom.” He also replied to a question about summarizing the game in three words with this four-word quip: “The future of communication.”
Parents are understandably not impressed: Ellie Gibson of the Scummy Mummies Podcast characterizes Baszucki’s statement to parents as “a bit of a get out,” and the head of parenting resource website Mumsnet Justine Roberts argues that managing childrens’ use of Roblox isn’t easy even with parental controls set. “We all know that with the best will in the world life sometimes gets in the way,” she says. “If you’ve got multiple children you’re looking after and things happen, […] you probably can’t 24/7 watch everything they’re doing.”
Another one for the pile…
