Parents are cranking up Roblox for their first-hand experience of disruptive games and failed content filtering

In case you were wondering if the CEO of Roblox blew smoke as he hailed “safety and courtesy,” allow a parent’s deeply disturbing first-hand experience with the game tell you that the company’s moderation may not be what it claims to be.

The Twitter thread from a woman named Carolyn, a games industry veteran, begins with screenshots of parental controls set to the maximum for children ages five to eight and notes how those restrictions should open manually curated content. Despite these filters, Carolyn was exposed to “dozens” of public toilet simulation games that fell under the “All Ages” tag.

Upon entering one, she narrates moments – with video evidence – of her character slipping on a puddle of water and getting stuck in a reclined position, which in turn led to several other players pretending to sexually assault the character. Other visits to similar games had additional “crawl factor” moments, such as one where players could jump into a locked cubicle and take a selfie with the character while they were in the restroom.

“Look, I know it’s stupid. I generally expect NSFW stuff when playing a multiplayer game. But these games are MANUALLY selected by Roblox to get the All Ages tag. And despite previous problems with bathroom games, they insist on continuing to offer them in the youngest age group.

“A multiplayer platform with user-generated content marketed to young children is a nightmare. There is literally no way to make it safe. You can’t even be sure that the players playing with your kids are actually kids.”

The six-hour experience she shared eventually prompted Carolyn to delete her children’s Roblox accounts. Responses to the thread also saw more horror stories shared by other parents, while even more parents echoed Carolyn’s advice to eliminate the game from their children’s lives. “I deleted my children” Roblox accounts and recommend it to you too,” she writes. “Something is wrong with Roblox Corp.”

When Roblox was contacted by Polygon, a spokesperson claiming the tools for parents have been updated and insisting the company is using “global industry standards and consulted child development experts as guidance [its] guidelines.”

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