Khaberni - Children are continually exposed to "disturbing" content inside the game "Roblox" as described by a study conducted by the "Reveiling Reality" market research company, despite recent updates to the game and the implementation of age verification systems, according to the "Guardian" report.
The company conducted an extensive study on the "Roblox" environment and its world using a fictitious child account approximately 10 years old, and concluded last April that the platform's dangers are not only limited to predators or adults present but also include content inappropriate for the targeted age group.
Afterward, the company updated and improved the game to make it safer for children. Hence, "Reveiling Reality" retested the game after the recent updates were applied and published in recent weeks.
The second experiment concluded that the improvements made to the game were not sufficient to protect children directly, as the company encountered explicit bad content and did not address the covert bad content within the platform.
The study added that the age verification mechanisms act as a gatekeeper attempting to prevent children from accessing inappropriate content, but it does not prevent the presence of such content in a game described by its maker as suitable for children and characterized by a friendly cartoonish appearance.
The study relied on a different mechanism to test the game, as it created several accounts of varying ages starting from 5 years to 18 years old in an attempt to determine the difference between the accounts in different age groups.
However, the age verification mechanism is not mandatory in "Roblox" and can be easily bypassed, allowing adults access to children's safe spaces.
This means that age verification mechanisms prevent children from moving to spaces and experiences designed for adults, while users who are over 13 years old are able to interact with all other users, whether they are children or adults.
Nothing prevents children from creating a fictitious account with an age exceeding 13 years, nor can adults be prevented from activating an account younger than 13 years as long as they have verified a phone number in the account.
The University of Sydney also published a separate study last March describing the game's experience and its currency system as akin to a full-fledged gambling system in the absence of necessary clarifications on how the system works and the special gains associated with it.
