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  jjmarr
  The "child safety measures" was dividing the playerbase into age groups and banning almost all communication between them. The age groups are under 9, 9–12, 13–15, 16–17, 18–20, and 21+. Users only speak to other players ±1 age group, so 18-20 can speak to 16-17 or 21+.The problem is almost every game on Roblox is social and the matchmaking isn't mature enough to ensure players in a lobby can all communicate.My favourite is "generic roleplay gaem". The main fun is inciting riots against the leader or forming alliances to do raids. I could join a game and within half-an-hour I'd be engaged in drama, since Roblox incentivizes ephemeral lobbies with random people meaning I don't need a lengthy time commitment to form an alliance.But I can no longer do that because I am 25 years old and the lobbies are too young. Heck, I'd rather play that game with only other users over 18+ because I could swear and be more toxic. But the matchmaking system literally makes that impossible.I've had the same Roblox account for 18 years and have spent tens of thousands of Robux on the platform. I let Roblox scan my passport even, so they know who I am. Even though I own nearly 1000 Steam games, Roblox still filled my desire for low-commitment social games I could jump into on my phone or computer if I had a few hours of downtime. Now it is effectively unplayable.I'm in favour of child safety. But these measures were implemented poorly and needed to be paired with matchmaking to not destroy the platform.
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  a2128
  Roblox's introduction of mandatory face verification to chat is one of the most biggest examples of how people in tech can get so deep in trying to create a solid technical solution, that they completely miss the human problems it creates.You could create the best possible face verification system that processes everything completely locally, uses CPU security features to make sure the photos stay exactly where they're supposed to, etc etc. You could design the best possible chat age segregation system that makes sure nobody can ever get groomed over chat again. You can get so deep that you forget you're forcing children to take pictures of themselves, and fail to consider the wider effects this will have on the safety of those kids in general.How's Jimmy supposed to know that taking a picture of himself for roblox.com is okay, but taking a picture for somescamwebsite that he found in a Roblox game is absolutely not okay? This solution creates a much worse problem. Sane parenting would tell kids to never take pictures of themselves or put it on any website, but now we're clearly shifting the role of parenting to tech companies and we are going to see bad consequences of this.
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  darth_avocado
  Investors are hilarious. What’s better: more investment in child safety measures so that a company remains a long term product that parents allow their children on, or no safety measures to increase profit so that parents stop letting their kids be on the platform, thereby killing long term viability of the product?Quarterly thinking is the bane of the health of corporate America.
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  tech_hutch
  "While our aggressive push to enhance safety lowers our expectations for topline growth in 2026, it makes our platform fundamentally better and amplifies the long-term growth potential of Roblox through more effective content targeting, tailored communication experiences, and improved community sentiment," the company wrote in its letter to shareholders. Actual ghouls.
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  JumpCrisscross
  "According to the company, 73% of age-checked daily active users on Roblox were under 18, with 35% under 13 as of Jan. 31."The story under the story seems to be Roblox has lost plausible deniability.With increasing–and, in my view, inevitable–calls for age gating social media, these data mean between a third and three quarters of Roblox's users could soon be banned from monetisation or banned entirely from their platform.
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  bastard_op
  Roblox has long been known as a pedo farm, and talks with friends actually with kids all know it, so I don't know how it's still even around.
• Aaronsood
  Roblox is genuinely digging its own grave, the brainrot games made a huge chunk of its playerbase leave, then after the schlepp situation, added all that age verification stuff, and then most of the kids left too. Now there is just a fraction of its original players left playing.
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  hokumguru
  Regardless of Roblox’s continued failings I strongly believe that there needs to be a safe, scrutinized, and open online platform for children to socialize in meaningful ways. As much as we would rather discontinue social media for minors the fact remains that for millions of Americans the internet provides a primary means of social fulfillment, especially in gaming, which is far more popular among youth demographics.I think Roblox themselves have a chance in the coming years to prove themselves this space. They have one of the greatest chances to create this space precisely due to the intense scrutiny they’re currently under. It’s honestly that or fold basically. And if it’s not Roblox, what other platform do we trust our children on?There have absolutely been growing pains since I regularly played games on the platform in ‘09-‘13 but I also credit Roblox extremely heavily in my journey as a software engineer making social games for me and my friends. It fostered that curiosity in a frankly healthy way for a young nerd that has eventually culminated in a job at FAANG and great academic fulfillment. I hope they can continue to provide this for millions of more children, just in a safer and healthier way.
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  hitekker
  This is the second time in the last month that Hindenburgh's reports appear to be prophetic. Previously, they called out Backblaze before the company began harming its own product.
• dlev_pika
  More safety = less sales, got it, nothing to worry about here, parents.
• zetanor
  The market valuates Roblox child abuse at almost a billion dollars?
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  tailscaler2026
  Funny how the world abruptly decided kids shouldn't have social interactions online right as AI chatbots took off.
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  andrepd
  Child well-being being inversely correlated with stock price is very much a nice summary of the times we live in.
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  brcmthrowaway
  There was a time 5-10 years ago where Roblox was going on a ex-FAANG hiring spree and folks on Blind were pulling in insane salaries (probably still pay amazing).. but to work for fucking Roblox. Truly a "these are not my people" moment.
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  Fokamul
  Roblox is open buffet for pedos for YEARS.These corporations don't give a sh...Only thing you can do is to petition your lawmakers to ban whole platform.Safety measures will always be a joke. Open chat/voice chat, "Hi, connect to my discord" -> all safety measures bypassed.But at the end of the day, this a parenting problem.
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  colesantiago
  Good.I am curious why does Roblox even exist?This shouldn’t even be a business, let alone a public company.I wish games can just stay games like Valve does and not grow and grow and grow into public companies.