Parents worried about potential inappropriate content in Roblox should keep their children off the virtual online platform, says CEO Dave Baszucki.
Speaking in a recent interview with the BBC, Baszucki responds to viral circulating claims regarding Roblox and its safety, as well as the possibility it presents for children to encounter harmful content. The CEO insists, despite such claims, that the Roblox Corporation maintains high standards when it comes to protecting its users, stating that "tens of millions" of players have "amazing experiences" while engaging with the platform.
As for parents' concerns, Baszucki advises that any worried families simply don't allow their children to use Roblox. "My first message would be, if you're not comfortable, don't let your kids be on Roblox," says the CEO. "That sounds a little counter-intuitive," he admits, "but I would always trust parents to make their own decisions." According to Baszucki, this doesn't mean the Roblox Corporation doesn't take safety seriously, though.
"We do in the company take the attitude that any bad, even one bad incident, is one too many," he assures. "We watch for bullying, we watch for harassment, we filter all of those kinds of things, and I would say behind the scenes, the analysis goes on all the way to, if necessary, reaching out to law enforcement." Any user not displaying "civility," as the CEO puts it, faces temporary time-outs or lengthier account bans.
Roblox uses advanced AI to analyze all communication between players, working to flag any potentially inappropriate contact. As for the games on the platform and how they're rated, Baszucki, who calls himself "less of a gamer and more of an engineer," insists the Roblox Corporation has a "consistent policy" with rigorous guidelines to ensure proper ratings are applied to each one so that they're recommend to appropriate audiences.
An undeniable majority of the Roblox community consists of users under 18, but Baszucki seemingly expects as much. Before he worked on Roblox, he led an education software company dubbed Knowledge Revolution – only to quickly notice that children weren't just interested in learning, but were rather into creativity, too. "They wanted to play and build stuff," he recounts, and witnessing that fact is part of how Roblox came to fruition.
"They were making houses, or ships, or scenery, and they wanted to jump in, and all of that learning was the germination of Roblox," states Baszucki, who compares his experience of building Roblox with how Walt Disney might have felt about his own creations – "a little like having the opportunity he had a long time ago when he was designing the Magic Kingdom," to be precise. Baszucki now sees Roblox as "the future of communication."
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