Roblox safety chief knows age checks are "unpopular," but "the cost of not acting is greater than the friction of acting"

Roblox's chief safety officer has responded to concerns about the game's ongoing implementation of age check requirements, noting that "we understand it's unpopular," but "the cost of not acting is greater than the friction of acting."

In the last few months, Roblox rolled out age checks for players who wanted to access its chat function, with users asked to go through a facial age estimation process using their device's camera. What's more, earlier this month, it was announced that age verification is being rolled out further – as well as introducing Kids and Select accounts for children aged 5-8 and 9-15, respectively, new publishing requirements will place fresh restrictions on anyone wanting to publish content on the game platform.

Specifically, in order to publish content available to all ages, users will have to be ID-verified, have two-factor authentication set up, and have an active Roblox Plus subscription, which will cost $4.99 a month (Roblox says it'll be "covering the cost of Roblox Plus for about one hundred thousand of our existing creators for the next 6 months"). Their games will also go through a new evaluation process. In addition, users wanting to publish content to players 16 and over (or to Trusted Friends) will also need to complete an age check, but they'll seemingly be able to use facial age estimation rather than their ID.

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Although these changes are being made to "help make sure games are suitable for our youngest users," with it being noted that "keeping the trust of users, their parents, and the policy makers who represent them is incredibly important, and helps make sure Roblox can continue to be accessed around the world," obviously, not everyone is happy about more age checks being rolled out.

Responding to one player in a recent Ask Me Anything session, who calls requirements like the age check to use the chat "some of the least popular changes to date," and asks if the devs are "aware of the impact it may face on the current platform" by enforcing them on developers and influencers, wondering why no concessions are being made "despite the overwhelming feedback and increasing frustration," chief safety officer Matt Kaufman says it has to be done.

"Our job as a platform is to balance the needs of every part of our community – players, parents, creators, and influencers," he begins. "We've heard loudly from parents and policymakers that they need stronger assurances about the content available to our youngest users, and we take that just as seriously as we take feedback from creators and influencers."

Furthermore, Roblox is considering "how to balance that freedom of creativity and the joy that comes with building really anything," and how that's balanced with "making sure that the content that's accessible to our youngest users and young teens is age-appropriate."

He continues: "On age checks specifically: we understand it's unpopular. But the honest reality is that the cost of not acting is greater than the friction of acting. Without these requirements, Roblox risks losing access in entire regions; which means fewer players, smaller audiences, and less opportunity for every creator and influencer building on this platform. Some Roblox everywhere is better than full Roblox nowhere."

Kaufman concludes: "Roblox today is not the platform it was five, ten, almost twenty years ago. There are more responsibilities that come with our scale, yes, but there are also exponentially more opportunities to build a real business, reach a global audience, and access more power tools than ever before."

Age verification is becoming more and more commonplace worldwide – not just in Roblox. After all, by the second half of the year, Discord is set to roll out its divisive "age assurance" update globally, which will lock certain features – like access to adult content – behind age verification, although apparently, many adult users won't need to do anything thanks to the platform's age determination system. Regardless of the implementation, however, changes like these are always controversial – it seems unlikely we'll ever see an announcement like this go down without any backlash.

Discord raises more questions while attempting to quell age verification fury by saying an AI model can look at "patterns of user behavior" to predict how old many folks are anyway.