Can’t both be true? It can be true that Roblox keeps kids hooked through shady practices but if not them, kids would have sought other places. Club Penguin, RuneScape, WOW, Xbox Live, all served similar functions for myself growing up, I don’t find it hard to believe I would have ended up on Roblox

It's both disappearing opportunities for physical play AND addictive platforms

As if arcade games weren’t money hungry and painfully punishing purely to get more quarters out of children.

What countries do you have in mind?

More accurately the kids you're aware of don't want to.

Where I am kids seem to love the outside, they're all over the plygrounds, they like driving quad bikes and tractors, they prefer to fly drones IRL under the sky than inside on a screen, they're still playing football and netball. Hitting a target at a thousand yards is still more fun IRL than not.

Our grandkids and their generation started welding, carpentry, glassblowing, metal casting etc. from five or so onwards, most are 13 to 16 now, still being forced to use paper maps to navigate, but allowed to collect track data on GPS recorders and overlay tat on GIS maps at night, etc.

Takes a bit of effort, the connection between real world interaction and reward has to be maintained, winding back network access to a quiet minimum helps.

Some will gravitate toward woodchopping for content rather than twitch streaming running about a virtual world.

I play Roblox with my daughter from time to time and we have lots of fun. I’ve explained the dangers to her (strangers messaging, gambling style games, etc), and I see it as an opportunity to teach her while she still listens to me. When she’s older and I’m not privy to everything she does on a computer I don’t want her stumbling across these things uninformed.

A portion of her pocket money goes to Robux, which she saves up for special outfits (eg halloween) or creatures in her favorite game about birds. No different from the hobbies many adults have - except I use it as a teaching opportunity about saving, buyer’s remorse etc., again while she’s still young and listening.

My son plays Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 on the Playstation sometimes, if all his homework is done and his room is tidyish.

No inducements to buy in-game currencies, no weird people chatting to my child online, no deeply profoundly unsettling user-generated content. About the only downside is that I occasionally have to remind him that his teacher probably doesn't really want to hear about Screaming Females or Rough Francis or Bad Religion, although it's perfectly okay for him to have opinions about them.

Plus I doubt I'm ever seeing my initials on the highscore table ever again. The Future Is Now, Old Man.

I still let my kid play a couple of hours a week, but told him no robux at all, it just wasn't something we were even going to consider. Let's see how it lasts, hopefully I can get him interested in something else but somehow his entire local social circle collapsed when we made him cut back on his play time. Its not even strangers at this point, but kids at school that have caused conflicts.

The problem is that just like boycotts/individual action doesn't work (besides a handful of lucky exceptions), this won't work either if all your kids' peers are on it. Being the "odd one out" brings its own share of problems, especially in a volatile environment where any pretext for bullying is a good one.

This is why we need regulation. Both for child-focused platforms, but also for adults (regarding social media).

Roblox is popular precisely because majority of kids play it for free without buying Robux.

Minecraft by itself is benign, but online servers? Oh boy.

Full tilt P2W servers, ran by low key cybercriminals, with I Can't Believe It's Not Gambling mechanics targeting children. And Mojang itself is adding fuel to the fire by selling paid mods - for Bedrock only, which is the version most children play.

Then there's the usual boon of online gaming - getting to interact with the shadiest characters you've ever met online.

There is Minecraft the standalone game that you play either by yourself or on a private server with friends you know IRL. That's totally fine.

Then there is the wider Minecraft community based on a constellation of public and semi-public servers. This is a lot more like Roblox.

I was fine with Minecraft until the kids started wanting to install all kinds of mods, which as far as I know are random executables you download from shady websites.

just another surface for predators to access underage targets. I guess one thing with Minecraft specifically is there’s a veneer of positive / educational content to smuggle that access beneath - schools have lessons that include Minecraft play, you don’t get that with Fortnite or Roblox, so it seems more ‘innocent.’

Fortnite is about killing eachother, Roblox is about literally anything, Minecraft is about… well, mining and crafting, mostly.

But really, with mods, it can be just as ‘anything’ as Roblox, only with possibly less scrutiny.

Idk. I love Minecraft, for the record. It’s just the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and the popular online game that provides access to kids gets the creeps.

School (or parents) running local servers for kids in school to play to avoid the whole bunch of dangers of open online would be interesting turn back to gaming roots

As others have said there's a big difference between the Minecraft "we" (the tech community growing up on Beta versions of Minecraft) know and the Minecraft of today.

The subsequent versions also developed the game mechanics a lot to turn it into something closer to an RPG than the early, bare-bones sandbox game with minimal, well-understood mechanics and the rest purely up to the players' creativity.

There's nowadays an abundance of Pay-to-Win servers with custom mechanics to enable that, and I'm sure a lot of unsavory people preying on children. The social media (YouTube/etc) community around it has exploded too in a way I don't recall it before (I used to be into Minecraft videos back in the ~2012 era, and what I see nowadays grosses me out in comparison).

Minecraft is infested with ads including massive in-game ads and advertisers are all over servers, popular online influencers, etc.

https://www.minecraft.net/en-us/article/lacoste-x-minecraft

https://minecraft.wiki/w/Universal_Studios_Event

https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/how-the-hell-do-you-throw-a-m...

Do you have link? How does Unity make money running in Fornite which uses Unreal?

Physical play is nigh impossible. It means getting other kid's parents to let them out. And then you need to spend your full-time supervising them. Can't just let them out with their bikes on the streets.

I think the problem is that either you can give children freedom to explore the world, or you can make them accountable for their actions. Can't have both, and parents will protect their kids by not letting them get into trouble.

Schools are the problem. Hear me out.

Schools group together only one age of kid for socialization and only 20-30 of them. If your kid is not into the same thing as enough of the other kids in that group, they will likely be ostracized, even unintentionally. So you must let your kid do the things their friends do.

Broader society does not restrict the age of who you can socialize with. My friends vary in age quite a bit. My friend's kid can play with my kid despite being a different age, but that's much less than the 30 hours a week spent in school.

Has an authority ever forbid you to do something and you still did it?

If so, was it a problem that you didn't listen?

I'm not a parent, but fortnite is not like smoking or drugs, common. If you don't let kids grow over this kind of bad content, they will never become good discriminators.

Victorian Dad is on HN

People are downvoting this but it's the correct response. I will never worry about Roblox because my child will never be able to play it at home. Problem solved. I understand that maybe non-technical people might not know to think about these things, but in this crowd this response should be the most upvoted. These things are poinsons. Don't feed your children poison. It's pretty simple. "They'll be left out!" Good! While other children consume poison my child will be left out from consuming poison.

most of the Roblox predation is occurring on Discord, so not a solution

(and actually explains why the CEO this article is about feels like its not his problem, because as long as people keep pointing fingers in the wrong direction for our legal system, then the CEO and Roblox corporation will be impervious and their efforts seen as sufficient)

I don't think it's a terrible idea. You could make the keys some sort of amiibo-like NFC device or trading card.

There is probably some way you could toy-ify it and sell a lot of units

Parents have whatsapp groups for their kid's classes? That's news to me. When did that become the norm?

NFC tags in custom "avatars" unique to and customizable by each kid, turning friends into collectables? I would've been all over that in my early teens.

> That’s pretty much the antithesis of online gaming. You’re not ONLY playing with other kids you know.

That's how online gaming looked for us back then, played in school over LAN or in local small town's "ISP" (which was just a bunch of ethernet cables strung together between apartment blocks).

It was fucking great.

And if choice (with parents not wanting to risk wider internet) is "play with your classmates/grade" and "don't play", it's far better option

What important aspects of gameplay are destroyed by age-restricting DMs?

> Parents need to not offload all their responsibilities to a multibillion dollar corporation and hope it works 100% of the time

Hard habit to kill given that so many also offload many of the responsibilities to schools

If it's inappropriate for him to have a "position," he should not be saying things like claiming "Roblox is a problem"

"hold executives, product managers, and engineers personally criminally liable for building a system that puts inappropriate material in front of children"

If that didn't happen with pornography websites in the 90s/2000s it's probably not happening now.

Don't be so dismissive! In practice...

- You cannot prevent your child to login and play at least 15mn (without manually resetting the password in the kid account) - combine this with the fact you cannot prevent changing the password reset email on the child account, and in practice you cannot prevent your child from using roblox - You cannot prevent gift card to be used - There's no way to trace gift cards usage at all - Roblox will remove controls at some ages without warning you - Deleting your kid account is a fight (it's been two weeks and roblox is asking me proof of ownership I cannot give since they don't exist) - You cannot prevent fear of missing out - You cannot control pay to win games - You cannot prevent your child face to be scanned and shared for "age control" - Same for your own face - Probably more...

Oh and don't forget there's absolutely no way to prevent your kid to have multiple accounts, and have a parallel life you know nothing about.

I think parents (not fully unfoundedly) expect more of a playground experience from something advertised as a "game for children", so for them it follows that they should precisely not have to manually police it.

> Tbh making Roblox illegal feels like the same moral panic that our parents had around metal music, hip-hop, and arcades.

I feel like this argument has become a cliche in itself. Sometimes things are worth panicking about, and limiting access to things like cigarettes or gambling for children has been a real benefit to society. The same could be true for the dark patterns listed above.

I used to work at the local after school club a few years ago and we had to have several interventions when the 8-10 year old girls were talking about the grown men they were talking to through Roblox.

The grooming going on there is a real problem. At least more awareness for parents would be a good thing.

It goes beyond that though. There are games and in-game content that aren't being reviewed. There are claims of player skins where the characters are wearing a t-shirt with an actual photo of Charlie Kirk's death (the shot to the neck).

Anyone can make a Roblox game and publish it, and there doesn't seem to be a lot of moderations or verification going on. And you don't need to "talk", voice or text. You can emote, type on signs, and communicate in other ways.

> I prevent her from talking to others,

Honestly the voice comms have been a nice upgrade and I find I mind it a lot less than text. It's a lot easier to confirm the person on the other side is not some middle aged creep. It's also a lot more ergonomic for talking with friends (though they already tend to use facetime calls in the background)

I mean, gambling for underage children is already illegal due to a myriad of reasons. I'd argue the psychological design of gacha games should be limited. Building patterns that get adults addicted, and advertising them specifically to children is the problem.

In the same way if a casino advertised child roulette wheels, I'd want legislation to step in.

I try to comment on Roblox whenever it comes up as my daughter was pulled into a grooming pedo gang through Roblox.

Read some of the comments from a HN thread from 3 years ago where HN parents insist that they are able to properly educate and self-censor. Enough people don't care (enough), despite Roblox being called out all the time by people with big platforms.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32014754#32015542

I am shocked that Roblox has not been shut down, not by regulators, but by parents flat-out denying access. All evidence suggests that yes, it is that bad.

> Somehow people don't really seem to care at all.

> I am watching YouTubers showing these things for years to the public.

I'm confused, aren't "YouTubers who make videos about the problem" people? They seem to care so much that they've put money, time, and energy into creating videos illustrating the problem.

I mean, if someone was on a street corner selling child friendly cigarettes, I wouldn't call that a parenting issue.

I think parenting is one aspect, but surely you see how given it's a platform that advertises itself specifically for children, in the same way as if there was a children channel on the TV telling your kids to smoke crack, maybe someone should step in

I think it becomes a societal issue when the product is specifically aimed at children as opposed to simply existing.

As a society, we limit children's access to predatory stuff all the time - porn, alcohol, cigarettes, gambling/lottery, guns, even swear words on the public airwaves.

> I’m not a big Thunberg fan either but I cannot replicate the thought process that would lead to mentioning her as a potential Antichrist prototype. And that wasn’t even the weirdest thing, just the easiest to explain.

I know he doesn't like Greta, I don't either.

But I didn't see his lecture, he theorizes that she may be the antichrist? lol

> CEO: repeats banal PR talking point for the 10th time

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle

So historically, when someone accepted an interview yet refused to engage with any questions, or stay on topic, AND also was not interested in the smooth polish of PR-style transitions that would give an appearance of basic cooperation.. it was considered unhinged and obviously crazy behavior.

If interviewee acts clueless, drawling, or drooling then they could be pretty uncooperative and mostly get a pass because it's not very polite to point out stupidity. But for the big bonus crazy-points though, interviewee may opt in to escalation, becoming unabashedly and almost childishly combative, talking over each other, etc. Obviously all of these tactics are pretty normalized now though.

> I was bored.

This is basically the goal. After the interviewee realizes the interviewer is hostile, they just double down on their talking points to signal to investors and ignore the intended audience of the interviewer. Mistake on the interviewers part honestly to publish it at that point IMO.

"I thought we were going to be talking about something else, but I want to talk about anything you guys want"

doesn't talk about the thing they want

It is redundant and I don't think it is a trainwreck either

It's hard to tell. You have to wait a generation or two to see the long term effects, as people will still have their earlier social habits.

It feels as though people slowly learned that they could get away with not introducing themselves to their neighbors, invite them over for dinner, and other activities that were once assumed.

1950s was the baby boom so is not a great example. Children per adult has been falling ever since and suburban areas growing.

It's definitely this. I live in one of the safest cities in the country, in the Midwest. The other day on some local Facebook group, I saw a mom trying to find someone to pick up her kids from middle school and elementary school every day. It was a 10 and 5 minute walk respectively that EVERYONE in that neighborhood took 30 years ago. No busy streets, nothing. Sidewalks and everything. Absolutely insane.

I think the parent is saying what you had is now not possible, because the neighbors don’t have kids. I’m in the burbs. Nearest kid is 4 door downs. Nearest kid the same age as my kid is two blocks over. Most people are 60+.

Anecdata but I think this is what the parent comment is asserting anyway.

The real-world conditions are beneficial to israel. I don't think yapping about it will resolve the conflict any more than it did for tibet.

What more can be said about the matter? Some pro-palestine organization will accuse Israel of genocide, and Israelis will continue bulldozing inch by inch.

As for "uncomfortable concerns about the state of the industry", those are on the front page and top of /active regularly

the signup page states in the Username box "Don't use your real name", and the facial verification doesn't need any personal details

Out of curiosity how did they manage to sign up for Instagram? Browser? Asking for a friend

> The fact that this still happened despite my many roadblocks and safe-guards I put in place really shocked me to the core. Not to mention the whole "am I terrible parent" question which naturally arises out of all this

I don't want to kick you when you're down, but you tried a technical solution on a human problem.

> I'd just be happy with one constraint and that is to forbid the crony capitalism that is rampant today.

But "regulated" capitalism inevitably leads to crony capitalism.

What we've arrived at can barely even be called capitalism, and old school capitalism paved the way:

https://web.archive.org/web/20220331174542/https://nymag.com...

Social sector (non profits) have an important place in capitalist society as there are plenty of non-market / non-profit missions that are important.

Unfortunately nuance is kind of lost in today's politics.

You’re comparing a hysteria over D&D where no one was actually harmed to actual child sexual abuse being allowed on an online platform?

One of the comments above has a video of a guy arrested and admitting to contacting several kids a day for a year.. that doesn’t sound like just some sort of over exaggerated panic.

> So about three per year, out of 112 million users? That's a far better track record than the Boy Scouts of America or the Roman Catholic Church.

It wasn’t immediate obvious when those were occurring only years later.. so most likely we are seeing the tip of the iceberg.

The problem is the Roblox games have exclusive timed events that give the children FOMO. So much that they have breakdowns and refuse to do their normally scheduled activities. And it changes their behavior.

You probably bought or pirated the games you played at the LAN party, maybe once and some DLC. You probably played with at least a few people you knew and the games had a goal - capture the flag or the bases or something - that often you had to work with a team to accomplish.

Roblox is designed from the ground up to sell Robux. Not to promote fun games or anything interesting in the least.

The games are complete brainrot - trying to find servers to get money measured in the billions to spend on rare items to collect to increase the money you earn per second to get more things, etc. And of course if you spend Robux - you can pointlessly accumlate fake billions even faster!

So the games are completely pointless and are nothing like playing Counterstrike or Doom or starcraft at a LAN party.

The events have also caused massive arguments and begging and pleading at my house since Roblox is rarely allowed (and would never be allowed if I had my way...)

Color me naive but we're there micropayments, sex and actual gambling in DOOM?

> You seem to be trying to draw some broader conclusion that video games are harmful.

I never said video games are harmful. I talked about manipulation of people of all ages at a planetary scale.

Isn't it obvious that you mention discrete events when, now, depending on the number of apps and online presence there is a virtually continuous set of events?

> If a restaurant served food that harmed people we wouldn't say, "it's on the parents."

But we do! Acute harm is bad but chronic harm is, apparently, fine.

> If a restaurant served food that harmed people we wouldn't say

Is sugar in your country restricted? Or meat? I guess alcohol is, as it's everywhere. But restaurants server many harmful food which is only tolerated because harm comes from time and serving-sizes. But the same can be said for dark patterns in software, they are usually not obvious and in your face, but sneaky enough to fly under the parent's attentions.

I've come to the belief that there is a larger than we assume portion of the population that is either complicit in these things, or doesn't think that these types of behaviors are "that bad". (some of the comments here are, sadly, exactly that) It's the only reasonable explanation I can think of why these things are so hard to root out. Some of these people perhaps never had children, which might be part of the disconnect. But if I was the CEO of a company harming children in this way, I'd make it my life mission to stamp it out and find and prosecute the individuals involved.

What else must we think goes through these executives minds? It's got to be things like "It's not my kids, so I don't care?" or "It's not that bad, people are too sensitive", or "I don't care what happens to kids because I have anti-personality disorder (psychopath) and only care about making money"

Yes, it's absurd how tech considers "but we're too big" to be a legitimate reason for inaction. That would get handcuffs clapped on you in any other industry. What happened to "too big to fail" being a sign of deep corruption requiring immediate action and breaking up companies?

> If a restaurant served food that harmed people we wouldn't say, "it's on the parents."

Isn't that how moralizing about the health benefits of a McDonalds-based diet go?

I literally said we need to pass laws to make it illegal. (ie knowingly allowing child trafficking or exploitation on your service)

> Agree, in any other field if a product cannot be made safe for consumers, you just don't produce and sell it

This is patently untrue. We are exposed to risk, incl. death, from products and services every day. Nothing can be 100% safe, nor would it be wise to aim for it. The benefits, as they say, often outweigh the cost.

> in any other field if a product cannot be made safe for consumers, you just don't produce and sell it

I’ll keep this in mind the next time I pick up some acetylene or muriatic acid.

Our parents had problems figuring out how to program the time on the VCR. Technology advances faster than parents can keep up.

If someone was selling drugs on the street on the way to school, would we be blaming parents who let their kids walk to school that they should parent better, or would we deal with the drug dealer?

I agree 100%, but it is fair to point out there is really no precedent for the level of involvement and knowledge and handholding it takes for a parent to navigate the digital world. Yes parents are widely failing, but it should be no surprise.

Parents understand that they cannot be the sole arbiter of everything for their children. Locking down your children's inputs is not fully realistic. If you remember being a child you remember circumventing your parents at every turn.

That makes a lot of sense to me: You only get chat with people you know. You can still even have mixed people-you-know and stranger lobbies, but you have to explicitly make them "someone you know" to do it.

That would likely mean everyone just sends chat requests at the start of each game though, which is more annoying, like a cookie popup.

Your kid has that private device because you gave it to them.

I think your comparison is more apt than you think but not for the reason you say it is. The Internet of today is like the Las Vegas of today—a largely sterile corporate theme park whose only real goal is just separating you from your money and is ruthlessly efficient at it.

i don't think the situation was that different. You could mind rot yourself on shfifty-five and all sorts of terrible content. People are just making an educated decision that that's not what they want for their kids. Parenting, how bout it.