As more kids join Roblox, parents grapple with how to keep their children safe online

• More than half of kids under the age of 16 in the US play games on a platform called Roblox, according to Forbes.
• The platform has taken multiple steps to keep its players safe since the assault of a young person in 2018.
• With millions of games on the platform and gaps in tech-literacy, parents still have some questions about how to keep their kids safe.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Roblox, a platform where kids make and play games, has exploded in popularity. The company reported more than half of kids under the age of 16 in the United States play it. Some developers on the platform have reported as over 1.7 million concurrent users at peak usage for a single game. If the game was successful before, it's now become a bonafide household name. The company filed for a public offering in October and could be valued as high as $8 billion.

Unlike other titles popular with kids - like Fortnite or Minecraft - Roblox is not a single video game. Roblox is a platform where kids go to pick from a wide variety of games made by other users on the platform. The official Roblox website currently boasts that the platform has "millions of experiences" to play.

The large presence of minors on the platform presents an ongoing moderation challenge for the company.

An in-game simulated assault brought moderation concerns around the game to the public's attention

In 2018, a group of players simulated an assault on a 7-year-old's character in a game on the platform. The child's mother wrote a viral Facebook post about the experience and surfaced moderation concerns about the platform.

Those that make the games on the platform play a limited role in moderation. Alex Hicks is a founder at Red Manta, a studio that's made popular Roblox games like "Robloxian High School." His team of 7 built a game that has been played over 950 million times. That number does not include unique players.

"We will moderate things like cheats that target our game specifically, but things like player behavior are handled by Roblox's massive moderation team. This is also necessary because bad behavior could happen across games owned by entirely different developers," Hicks said.

Since the simulated assault incident, the company has taken steps to mitigate trolling and protect kids on the platform. Current security features allow parents to draw upon a set of parental controls like restricting chat or the kinds of games kids can play. However, the variety of video games on the platform and number of ways kids play mean that different protections might vary depending on the person.

"We work tirelessly and relentlessly to create a safe, civil, and diverse community. That's why we have a stringent safety system - one of the most rigorous of any platform, going well beyond regulatory requirements," a representative from Roblox told INSIDER.

Parents have used different methods to try to protect their children who use Roblox

Amber Peterson, is the mother of the girl who was the subject of the simulated assault. She and her daughter became the subjects of national news coverage after Peterson's post on the incident went viral. Peterson asserted that the platform's moderation tools weren't enough. After coming forward, Roblox reached out to her personally to talk to her about technical changes to the platform, in addition to a new position the company created to lead a new "digital civility initiative".

"Overall, the benefits that my daughter receives through playing Roblox far outweigh the risks. Over the years, it has been extremely rare for us to witness any problematic content and it has always been immediately rectified by moderators," Peterson said.

Peterson advises, "for parents to closely monitor their children's activity while playing the game. Before allowing any child to play, parents should set up the account and maximize security settings to prevent any malicious activity from outside users." Peterson continued, "It's extremely important to restrict settings so that kids can only play by themselves or with friends depending on age and maturity level."

However, even tech-literate parents can have gaps in knowledge when it comes to parental controls. Ian Clark has one son, age 12, and his son plays Roblox frequently. Clark told INSIDER he has "been a gamer forever," and that compared to his wife and friends, he's a "wizard" when it comes to knowing tech.

Despite being his lifelong familiarity with video games, he still "struggles with the new stuff." When I spoke to Clark, he didn't know about all the available parental controls. The kinds of games his son primarily played didn't require the chat functions, so Clark wasn't aware that his son could talk to others online.

The ability to talk to strangers on the internet, of course, opens the door to the possibility of child predation.

"[My son] knows about the text chat but doesn't seem to play games it's used for. I'll have to look into that thing. It's going off until I'm confident it is safe."

For other parents, features like the text chat are more visible since it's an important part of play. Many of the most popular titles, like "Adopt Me!" or "Robloxian Highschool," are online multiplayer. Kids play online with others and use chat to roleplay and act out scenarios, like adopting a pet or going to high school.

Joyce Lewis has a daughter, age 12, who uses Roblox. Unlike Clark's son, Lewis' daughter plays games with roleplay elements and that require chat. Her daughter will get together with friends to dress up and hold fashion shows in a game called "Royale High."

"[My daughter] uses the chat function. Most of [the people she plays with] are, but every once in a while she'll add someone she has never met that's fun to play a game with. There are times, where there is roleplay and she'll meet them in that situation and she'll friend them."

"I haven't gone into the game and turned on controls." Lewis told INSIDER she, "wouldn't feel confident going and putting controls. I'd have to ask my husband or son to help me with that."

Instead of using controls on the game, she monitors her child's play in person. Lewis told INSIDER, "The computer is in a common area. So I can see what she's doing if she's in the room. I'm not there all the time, but I walk by every half hour or so or sometimes I'm just there in the same room as her while I do something else."

"The chat worries some parents, but during the isolating time of having to do school from home, it has helped her need to socialize. I thought that that was a good thing for her."