It's Irresponsible How Easy Children Can Make New Accounts on Roblox
What is the point of parental controls if they can just sign out and bypass them?
On Christmas morning, my nine-year-old daughter got her phone back. Because she’d forgotten her PIN, we also had to wipe the device and start from scratch. Her Google account, at least, meant that we weren’t entirely starting over with things like photos.
On a Google device, your child can re-install any previously approved app. She doesn’t need to ask my permission a second time. You will not be shocked to learn that Roblox was one of the first apps she installed. I was not shocked, either, reader!
What I was shocked to discover, however, was walking into her bedroom and seeing that nine-year-old playing Roblox on her phone. Did the app remember her account?
The answer is no.
She was not logged into her normal Roblox account, where I manage the content she can engage with and people she can talk to. Instead, when she installed Roblox on her phone, it prompted her to sign up for a new account. Did you know you can just sign up for a new account for Roblox, a platform currently being sued by several states?
Crucially, you don’t need an email address. Could a clever kid sign up for an email address and sign up for a bogus Roblox account? Absolutely. There are always loopholes and young people will, naturally, find ways to use them. But there is zero chance my nine-year-old would sign up for an email account and nab a new account.
A teenager is raptor testing the fence to try and get through. My kid walked through.
I figured there was something I—or my daughter—was overlooking. But sure enough, if you head over to Roblox.com, it’s clear as day. It’s obvious how this all happened.
Perhaps the most telling point, though, is what’s written before you sign up:
“If you are under 18, you agree that your parent/guardian permits you to create this account and agrees to our Terms of Use.”
When contacted, a Roblox spokesperson defended the policy.
“We care deeply about the privacy of our users, including our users under 13, so we do not require an ID or email to get access to Roblox,” said a spokesperson. “Rather than require every user to provide an email or government identification to play games on Roblox, we have chosen to require age checks to access certain features like chat, or where we seek to obtain additional assurance about a user’s age.”
Most platforms have these basic checks in place, whether it’s an email address or a phone number. One alternative is asking for a parent to submit one or the other, which would loop a parent into the conversation about installing Roblox to start. These steps, of course, would reduce the amount of accounts on Roblox. It would, of course, reduce the amount of users the company could promote are using Roblox.
Do you see the problem?
Hey, if you’re upset about your parental restrictions, sign out of the account, make a new one, and head back in! This is a cycle with less potency as ID verification rolls out to Roblox, but as it stands, ID verification is for chat access, not Roblox access. You could chat through another app, like Messenger Kids, and bypass ID verification.
As my daughter explained to me, she read the “if you are under 18, you agree that your parent/guardian permits you to create this account and agrees to our Terms of Use” statement as “my parents have allowed me to use Roblox, which means I can sign up.”
Honestly, fair. She was not in trouble. I’m upset at what the platform allowed her to do.
Sure enough, it’s easy to find posts on reddit and other places with parents upset:
“It seems odd to me that I can setup all the parenting controls I want for my daughters account but she can just go and setup a new account whenever she wants and doesn’t need to put in an email or anything to verify the account, plus it defaults to 13+ content no matter what age she puts in”
It’s also not shocking to see this kind of cynical response from another poster: “if kids wanna try get around something then theyre [sic] going to no matter what.” It’s true. But that doesn’t mean you just give up on trying to prevent folks from doing it.
The point of reasonable restrictions is they’re reasonable restrictions that can be still bypassed! Roblox is not putting on reasonable restrictions for signing up for a new account, knowing full well that 40% of its active users are under the age of 13 years old.
How many users, do you think, are simply lying about their age?
Coincidentally, Roblox’s new age-verification feature for chat access rolled out across the United States this week, after testing the feature in Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands. The company claims “over 50%” over Roblox players in those first handful of regions, which amounts to “tens of millions,” have completed an age check.
“We aim to make Roblox a platform that is safe for users of all ages,” continued the company spokesperson. “We maintain policies and Community Standards that are purposely stricter than those of most other platforms. We do not allow profanity between users who are not Trusted Connections. We do not allow sharing of images or videos. For users younger than 18, we do not allow depictions of drugs or alcohol.”
I’m a tech-savvy parent who runs a parenting blog about video games and technology and had my child not admitted to making a new account, how long would things have gone before I realized something was up? How long before she realized something was up? Yes, I manage my kids’ parental controls on a semi-regular basis, but that semi-regular basis isn’t daily. I make the adjustments and, then, trust things will be okay.
That is reasonable. So would be Roblox making signing up harder than it is right now.
Have a story idea? Want to share a tip? Got a funny parenting story? Drop Patrick an email.
Also:
Roblox’s response to my concerns are deeply frustrating, and only fuel suspicions the company’s actions on safety are to try and repair its public image.
This is a reminder to parents to double check your child’s Roblox account, because those parental controls might not actually be doing anything for you.
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