JAKARTA Concerns about the negative impact of online games are sticking out again, this time highlighting the popular game Roblox.
The Minister of Basic and Secondary Education (Mendikdasmen), Abdul Mu’ti, issued a firm warning of the potential dangers contained in the game, especially for students.
In his statement, Abdul Mu’ti assessed that Roblox is not worthy of being played by school students because it contains a lot of violent content that is feared to affect children’s behavior. He also appealed to students not to play this game in order to maintain mental health and shape a good character.
The warning received attention from the Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs (Komdigi). The government, through Komdigi, stated that it was considering blocking Roblox access nationally.
This step is taken as a form of protection for the younger generation from the influence of digital content that can lead them to deviant behavior.
The government’s concerns are reinforced by the results of a study by Revealing Reality that says Roblox poses a serious risk to children.
“Something very disturbing is the striking discrepancy between Roblox’s child-friendly appearance and the reality experienced by children on the platform,” reads a report from the research team, quoted from The Guardian’s website.
This research was conducted by creating a number of fake accounts that represent users aged five, nine, 10, 13 years, and an adult account. Researchers only allow these accounts to interact with each other, without the influence of other users outside the experiment.
The study results show that children can easily become targets of crime, ranging from exposure to inappropriate content to interacting freely with adults without adequate supervision.
In fact, one example, a five-year-old child’s account is easily chatted by an adult account, without an effective age verification system.
Researchers also found that a ten-year-old avatar can access a very suggestive game environment, including a virtual hotel where female avatars appear tempting on the bed, as well as a public room where avatars perform fetish-like activities.
While testing the voice chat feature, researchers also heard sexual conversations, kissing sounds, smell, and other sounds from other players. Although Roblox claims the voice feature is only available for accounts aged 13 years and over that have been verified via mobile phones, the study shows that content filtering is still very easily penetrated.
Even more surprising, the adult account in this experiment managed to request Snapchat contact information from a five-year account using a simple code language. Although the text chat system on Roblox is claimed to have been filtered and moderated, researchers view this as evidence that predatory actors can still find loopholes to approach children.
“The existing security arrangements are still limited in effectiveness and children are still facing significant risks on this platform,” the report said.
Responding to this report, Roblox acknowledged that there was a security gap and stated that his party was continuing to work hard to improve their system.
“We strongly sympathize with parents whose children experience bad things at Roblox. However, tens of millions of people have positive, constructive, and safe experiences every day on Roblox,” the company said.
They also realize that digital security challenges cannot be handled alone by one company.
“We recognize that there are malicious actors on the internet. However, this problem does not only occur on Roblox and needs to be addressed through government collaboration as well as industry commitments to strengthen security measures on all platforms,” said Roblox’s representative.
Similar concerns also come from parents. A number of true stories were shared with The Guardian, including a 10-year-old boy who was a victim of an adult predator, and a 9-year-old girl who had a panic attack after seeing sexual content in the game.
The new security feature that Roblox announced last week is still not enough. Children can still chat with strangers who are not their friends. With 6 million experience on this platform, which has a lot of inaccurate descriptions, how can parents monitor all of that?” said Damon De Ionno, Research Director of Revealing Reality.
Beeban Kidron, a British lawmaker and digital safety activist, also highlighted this.
Roblox’s systemic failure in maintaining children’s safety. User research like this should be carried out routinely for products like Roblox,” he said.
Trust and safety is at the heart of everything we do. We continue to develop policies, technology, and moderation efforts to protect our community, especially children. This includes investment in advanced security tools, cooperation with experts, as well as empowerment of parents and caregivers,” said Matt Kaufman, Roblox’s Head of Security.
“In 2024 alone, we have added more than 40 new security features upgrades, and we remain fully committed to continuing to make Roblox a safe and friendly place for all users.” he continued.
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