endofdays
Well-Known Member
Roblox: The children's game with a sex problem
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60314572
A naked man, wearing just a dog collar and a lead, is led across the floor by a woman in a bondage outfit. Two strippers dance next to a bar.
A group has gathered around a couple openly having sex, watching and occasionally commenting.
One man is wearing a Nazi uniform.
This isn't happening in the real world, it's taking place on a children's gaming platform.
Roblox is a huge sprawling world of games which is sometimes described as a kind of primitive metaverse.
It's one of the most popular children's games in the world.
The exact figures are a little hazy, but in 2020 Roblox two-thirds of all US children between the ages of nine and 12, use the game.
Roblox allows users to create and play games together. It's a way to connect, in real time, with other people in a digital world.
Players can build games, using the developer tools which the platform provides. Unlike more traditional games, the content is generated by its users. It's a wildly successful business model, but it also comes with problems.
Roblox sex games are commonly referred to on the platform as "condos". They're spaces, generated by users, where people can talk about sex - and where their avatars can have virtual sex. In these games, Roblox's rules are thrown out of the window.
Roblox accepts it has a problem: "We know there is an extremely small subset of users who deliberately try to break the rules," a spokesperson told the BBC.
Condo games are usually only live for a short time - often less than an hour - before they are discovered and taken down. Roblox says it is constantly trying to take these games offline - using both manual and automated systems.
"We conduct a safety review of every single image, video, and audio file uploaded to Roblox, using a combination of human and machine detection," it said.
But some explicit content does slip through the net. It's a "cat and mouse" issue, said Larry Magid, president of ConnectSafely- a non-profit organisation that raises awareness about child safety online.