Roblox Launches Age-Specific Accounts for Under-16s

Popular gaming platform Roblox is launching a new account system, 'Kids' and 'Select', for users under 16 in early June. The system focuses on leveraging the latest technology to apply different content access and privacy settings tailored to users' ages.

The platform boasts over 144 million daily active users, a significant portion of whom are children and teens. Roblox Co-founder and CEO Dave Baszucki, announcing the new safety measures, emphasized a "zero-tolerance" policy for "bad actors" on the platform.

The new 'Kids' and 'Select' accounts will reshape safety, chat, and content access for users under 16. They are designed to create separate environments tailored to age groups, allowing content, chat, and parental controls to automatically adjust as users mature.

The 'Kids' account, for children aged 5 to 8, will be restricted to games with 'min' or 'low' ratings, and chat functions will be disabled by default. 'Roblox Select' accounts are for users aged 9 to 15 and will allow access to games up to 'moderate' ratings. Chat settings will be enabled by default in most regions, but filtering will remain active.

Alongside these safety measures, Roblox is implementing a scene analysis AI system for real-time detection of harmful content across the platform. Games will be assigned age ratings such as 'min,' 'low,' and 'moderate,' and certain categories like social gatherings or drawing will be excluded by default for users under 16. Safety is enhanced through a combination of AI-powered moderation, human review, and real-world gameplay signals.