Very popular among those under 13, the Roblox platform is accused of exposing our children to very real threats. Behind the creative interfaces, sexual predators would exploit flaws in its messaging and age verification system. A worrying reality which pushes experts to call parents for increased vigilance.
An alert from the top of the State
The High Commissioner for Children, Sarah El Haïry, publicly sounded the alarm last Tuesday. According to her, while attention is focused on TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat, the dangers are sometimes even greater in digital spaces wrongly deemed more “safe”, such as online gaming platforms.
“Predators go where the children are”she recalls, believing that Roblox, with its integrated messaging, must be considered as a real social network. However, these spaces often escape parental supervision.
A platform massively frequented by minors
Roblox boasts nearly 150 million daily players around the world… including perhaps your children. In 2024, around 40% of its users were under the age of 13, while registration is permitted from the age of five. The platform functions as a huge catalog of games created by users themselves: role-playing games, fashion worlds, horror experiences or daily life simulations. But it’s not the games, which tend to be “good-natured” or creative, on the whole, which pose a problem. But the associated messaging.
In these worlds, players can chat with each other, including strangers. A central point of current concerns.
Testimonies collected by the French media illustrate the seriousness of the situation. According to child protection associations, many children report having received sexual messages or finding themselves in spaces where avatars mimic sexual acts. Journalistic investigations have also uncovered “experiments” inspired by figures linked to cases of sexual violence, since deleted by Roblox.
Easy to bypass age verification
The heart of the problem lies in age verification. In theory, Roblox claims to want to limit interactions between minors and adults, in particular via facial verification to use the chat, since January 7. In practice, this system is largely circumventable. Adults and children can pretend to be each other, making any interaction potentially dangerous.
An investigation by the American media Wired even recently called the age verification system a “disaster”, demonstrating that it could be deceived using simple photos, avatars or improvised makeup. Result: adults can interact with very young children who think they are interacting with players their own age.
“Informing without taboo is the best protection“
What to do in the face of the threat? In addition to banning Roblox, or implementing serious parental controls, Justine Atlan, general director of e-Enfance, told us in a previous article of the absolute necessity of opening a dialogue with our children.
“To protect your children, the best way is to inform them without taboo. Children today know the word “pedophile” thanks to school or the media. We must take advantage of this basis to talk about the Internet.”
She insisted on the need to clearly explain the risks specific to platforms like Roblox:
“You need to tell them that online, when they are mixed with older subscribers, some people may try to seduce and manipulate them. Talking to them is essential, because they will know that they can come to you without fear of being judged. You really need to make them feel less guilty.”
What to do if a child is victimized or uncomfortable?
The expert then explained simple but essential reflexes to pass on to children and adolescents:
- Stop responding as soon as a discussion becomes uncomfortable;
- Cut contact and block the person, even without knowing how to explain why;
- Take screenshots to preserve evidence.
It is also possible to:
- Use the reporting tools integrated into the platform;
- Report the facts on Pharos, the official police website;
- Contact 3018, the national number against digital violence, free and confidential
“The number one rule is not to wait until your child finds themselves in this situation to discuss it,”
she emphasizes.
Parental controls on Roblox: useful but insufficient
Roblox offers a parental control system, which notably allows:
- To restrict in-game purchases;
- To manage the age of the account;
- To limit access to certain content;
- To control or deactivate messaging;
- To consult the history of games and purchases;
- Manage profile visibility and friend requests.
To activate it, parents must create a Roblox account, associate it with their child’s account, then configure the options in the “Parental Controls” tab.
But experts point out: these tools can be circumvented and do not replace human vigilance or dialogue.