An idiot parent’s guide to keeping your kids safe on Roblox

While your children build virtual empires in Roblox and navigate Discord servers with the confidence of digital natives, predators lurk in these same spaces. It’s time to arm yourself with knowledge, because ignorance is not bliss when your child’s safety is at stake.

Clear and present danger

Let’s start with some uncomfortable truths, courtesy of The Digital Law Company associate Rorke Wilson, whose assessment of online dangers should make every parent sit up and pay attention.

According to Wilson, the primary real-world dangers for children on platforms like Roblox include exposure to harmful content and child predators. And, of course it does: child-oriented platforms inevitably attract individuals who seek to abuse children. It’s not a bug in the system – it’s a predictable feature.

Read more: Child safety and the dark side of the R486bn Roblox empire

The problem is particularly widespread in the United States, where The Guardian reported this week that Roblox submitted more than 24,000 reports last year to the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children which handles suspected child sexual exploitation.

Matt Kaufman, chief safety officer at Roblox, told The Guardian that by the end of the year, the platform will require all users who have access to communication on Roblox to go through an age check process or age estimation process.

Roblox operates on what Wilson calls an “upload first, moderate later” model. Think of it as letting anyone post anything and hoping someone will clean up the mess afterwards. This means children can stumble across “condo” games – virtual freak-offs that are often used to target children – before moderators have a chance to intervene.

When it comes to child predators, Wilson’s advice is simple: “If you discover your child is being groomed online, immediately remove their devices to stop the abuse, block the predator across all platforms, and preserve as much evidence as possible.” No negotiation, no second-guessing – swift action is crucial.

Surviving the game

But here’s where it gets depressing: legal recourse against platforms like Roblox is currently minimal. Our own South African Police Service lacks the capacity to effectively investigate and prosecute cybercrimes at the current scale. Meanwhile, Roblox enjoys legal immunity for user-generated content under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in the US, where it’s domiciled.

Roblox explicitly prohibits vigilante actions such as impersonating minors or attempting to expose predators yourself. Such activities violate their policies and can create more danger.

Read more: People are talking about this issue on Daily Maverick Connect. Join the conversation here.

Wilson warns that perpetrators could face criminal charges under South Africa’s Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act for exposing children to pornography or causing them to commit sexual acts. 

When platform reporting isn’t enough

Here’s where South African law becomes your ally. Unlike the US, South Africa operates under conditional intermediary liability through the Electronic Communications and Transactions (ECT) Act. Platforms can be held liable if they fail to act responsibly.

But holding them accountable is like trying to catch smoke – they use fake names, burner email addresses and VPNs, then move conversations to platforms like Snapchat where chats disappear by default.

This leaves us with a sobering reality: without watertight regulation or active parental oversight, children are guaranteed to be exposed to predators and harmful content. These issues aren’t unique to Roblox – you bump into it whenever children have unfettered access to online spaces.

True lies

Not all corporate players are sitting on their hands. Sea Monster Entertainment, which creates Roblox experiences for commercial partners (they’re the company behind Nedbank’s Chow Town), provided Daily Maverick with detailed responses about their approach to player safety, offering a glimpse into what responsible corporate behaviour could look like.

Sea Monster has developed specific design principles that other companies could learn from:

• They prohibit Roblox’s open voice chat in their experiences, considering it more vulnerable to misuse than text chat;
• They avoid features that enable communication outside the text-chat system, such as in-game drawings or message boards that have been exploited elsewhere;
• They provide their own in-game feedback system separate from Roblox, allowing direct player reports that their team constantly monitors;
• A dedicated community manager handles games like Chow Town to swiftly address complaints and implement player bans;
• Their team regularly conducts spot checks to directly monitor player activity; and
• They enable free private servers so players can play exclusively with approved friends.

Playing timecop

Here’s an interesting wrinkle: due to privacy restrictions on Roblox, Sea Monster and its clients don’t have access to personal player information beyond anonymous user names and country of origin. This privacy protection (which is actually good) means they primarily rely on Roblox’s reporting systems.

Their response protocol is straightforward: any player reported or observed engaging in inappropriate behaviour is immediately banned from Sea Monster’s games and reported through official Roblox channels. When necessary, they escalate issues to their direct contacts within Roblox senior management.

Sea Monster actively engages with Roblox leadership about safety features and collaborates with other studios through “Games for Change”, working alongside brands such as Lego and Sesame Street. They encourage parents to treat Roblox as a “shared digital space” similar to Facebook, Instagram or TikTok, where active involvement and open conversation are critical.

The company also pointed out something worth considering: most unofficial content on Roblox is non-malicious, often created by hobbyists. The presence of such content doesn’t reflect poorly on the thousands of brands that officially engage on the platform.

Government response

After a week of no response to our repeated queries, we received a response from the office of Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, Solly Malatsi at 6.30 this morning.

“In the previous iteration of the White Paper, there were proposals that went even beyond the takedowns of Section 77 of the ECTA. It might be something that is revisited when finalising the White Paper. This intervention might even address the provision in Section 78 of the no general duty to monitor. There have also been suggestions from stakeholders to amend the ECA to address foreign ownership issues.”

The DCDT’s position on industry oversight is that the ECT Act already provides a self-regulatory mechanism where Industry Representative Bodies (IRBs) must regulate the actions of their members. For example, one requirement for recognition is that the takedown procedure must be published on the IRB’s website, and member service providers must link to it from their own websites.

According to the department, IRBs are also required to ensure awareness of their Code of Conduct and takedown procedures among members, service recipients, and the public. In practice, service providers hosting unlawful content will usually communicate with clients before removing material, to ensure procedural fairness. However, the DCDT acknowledges that the ECT Act does not provide a formal process for response by the original content creator.

One safeguard, the department points out, is that anyone who knowingly misrepresents facts in a takedown notice can be held liable for damages for wrongful takedown.

Zero tolerance

South Africa’s legal framework actually provides more protection than many parents realise. While the SAPS faces capacity challenges and perpetrators exploit anonymity, our conditional liability system means that if you follow the tedious steps, these platforms can’t hide behind blanket immunity.

But the most important tool in your arsenal isn’t legal – it’s your active involvement in your child’s digital life. You wouldn’t drop your 10-year-old off in downtown Johannesburg and hope for the best. Don’t do it on the internet.

The internet isn’t going anywhere, and neither are the people who would harm your children. But armed with knowledge, legal tools and active engagement, South African parents can create safer digital experiences for their kids.

Because when it comes to your children’s safety, being on your own doesn’t have to mean being powerless. DM