This story has been bubbling on the side for some time it involves a lot of complex topics.
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That said. Where does this all end? Very little about Roblox makes it sound like the kind of place where young people can be safe and have fun online. I've brought this up before, but for all of the laws passed to "protect children" and all of the energy spent talking about online safety no one seems sincerely invested in making healthy online spaces.
I think that's because the only way to do that is with *human* moderation.
@futurebird oh no what's exploding with roblox now?
The endless churn of microtransactions?
The unsustainable cycle of milking underage devs for the next slop hit?
The total lack of functional moderation that lets the worst people run around unchecked?
People Make Games have done some really good journalism on those points, but I would believe it if a brand new horror has emerged on every parent's least favorite FNAF Clone Marketplace.
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@futurebird oh no what's exploding with roblox now?
The endless churn of microtransactions?
The unsustainable cycle of milking underage devs for the next slop hit?
The total lack of functional moderation that lets the worst people run around unchecked?
People Make Games have done some really good journalism on those points, but I would believe it if a brand new horror has emerged on every parent's least favorite FNAF Clone Marketplace.
Basically a young man, who grew up using roblox was frustrated because there are a LOT of people joking about being child predators on there as well as actual child predators. The joking 4chan like atmosphere enables these things by making it totally unclear to a child what is "normal" It would be easy for a child to think that such things are edgy and cool and some kids have been lured, hurt in real life.
So this young man starts running pedo stings. To catch the people doing it.
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Basically a young man, who grew up using roblox was frustrated because there are a LOT of people joking about being child predators on there as well as actual child predators. The joking 4chan like atmosphere enables these things by making it totally unclear to a child what is "normal" It would be easy for a child to think that such things are edgy and cool and some kids have been lured, hurt in real life.
So this young man starts running pedo stings. To catch the people doing it.
Of course such stings are touchy things, and roblox hates it. They ban him and all of this kids fans ... who see him as the only person who cares about the problem (and they might be right about that) are furious.
This is what I mean about it being messy.
Another messy ugly online space is kick.
It's wild to me that tiktok gets attention but kick, roblox are just somehow fine.
And roblox is worse because it's "made for kids" which means that parents let their guard down more.
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Of course such stings are touchy things, and roblox hates it. They ban him and all of this kids fans ... who see him as the only person who cares about the problem (and they might be right about that) are furious.
This is what I mean about it being messy.
Another messy ugly online space is kick.
It's wild to me that tiktok gets attention but kick, roblox are just somehow fine.
And roblox is worse because it's "made for kids" which means that parents let their guard down more.
@futurebird on the one hand, I applaud this young proto-Batman, but yes it's criminal that the situation came to that at all.
I constantly warn other parents, set a hard boundary with your kids about that garbage platform. Nothing good comes from it, unless you're a stockholder.
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Is the user-made Roblox game "too sexual" for teens? Was a user being exploitative? These aren't things you can solve with an automated filter or AI. It takes real time and attention of adults who can make level headed calls about where the line is in each case.
It also takes effort spent to model good community norms.
Instead a lot of young people have been left unsupervised in a fake online casino where "success" is earning a fake currency by making shock content.
@futurebird The way you describe it made something click for me that hadn't before...
There's this whole mythos around Gen X as latchkey kids who ferally roamed their world. That's been online spaces for those that came after for a number of reasons.
But, the problem is the same as it was then in terms of people who are supposed to be responsible for children being too overworked or too unengaged and offloading kids into environments they play in and others exploit them in.
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@futurebird on the one hand, I applaud this young proto-Batman, but yes it's criminal that the situation came to that at all.
I constantly warn other parents, set a hard boundary with your kids about that garbage platform. Nothing good comes from it, unless you're a stockholder.
It makes me really sad because the internet can be a magical fun place for young people. And it is understandable that kids would be excited to make games for each other and have a popular game that thousands of people play and talk about. Or even just be on the leader board as the winner of some online gaming contest.
But the space is under-moderated so of course some of these young people have tried to fix it by doing the moderation themselves.
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It makes me really sad because the internet can be a magical fun place for young people. And it is understandable that kids would be excited to make games for each other and have a popular game that thousands of people play and talk about. Or even just be on the leader board as the winner of some online gaming contest.
But the space is under-moderated so of course some of these young people have tried to fix it by doing the moderation themselves.
Then there is the role of discord in making some of these problems worse.
I shudder to think about what is happening in secret discords at any moment. The privacy of these online spaces can make them very dangerous.
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@futurebird The way you describe it made something click for me that hadn't before...
There's this whole mythos around Gen X as latchkey kids who ferally roamed their world. That's been online spaces for those that came after for a number of reasons.
But, the problem is the same as it was then in terms of people who are supposed to be responsible for children being too overworked or too unengaged and offloading kids into environments they play in and others exploit them in.
@clarablackink @futurebird as a parent, it’s tough. You can’t push against stuff too much, for risk of driving their interest into it sky high. You also can’t watch them all the time… it’s just not healthy for them or you. You have to arm them against exploitation as best you can. None of it is easy.
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F myrmepropagandist shared this topic
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Is the user-made Roblox game "too sexual" for teens? Was a user being exploitative? These aren't things you can solve with an automated filter or AI. It takes real time and attention of adults who can make level headed calls about where the line is in each case.
It also takes effort spent to model good community norms.
Instead a lot of young people have been left unsupervised in a fake online casino where "success" is earning a fake currency by making shock content.
@futurebird My daughter (10) was playing a game on Roblox called something like “Harbor East” which mostly involved criminal rampaging and shooting. We had a talk about it and she stopped playing that particular game and went back to her fashion contest game (which is also a bit problematic, IMO). I think it’s only a matter of time before I ban the whole thing in our house. I don’t know what in particular inspired your thread, but that platform makes me quite nervous as the parent of a rather precious child.
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@clarablackink @futurebird as a parent, it’s tough. You can’t push against stuff too much, for risk of driving their interest into it sky high. You also can’t watch them all the time… it’s just not healthy for them or you. You have to arm them against exploitation as best you can. None of it is easy.
@remote_orb @futurebird I think most of the kids that are successfully targeted tend to lack this type of parenting.
You shouldn't have to watch them all the time or control their behavior. This issue is bigger than individual parenting. We need real communities and accountability for companies (and individual bad actors).
Instead you're mostly abandoned to whatever you as a parent can muster for the duration of your time as one. And, it shouldn't be that way.
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@futurebird My daughter (10) was playing a game on Roblox called something like “Harbor East” which mostly involved criminal rampaging and shooting. We had a talk about it and she stopped playing that particular game and went back to her fashion contest game (which is also a bit problematic, IMO). I think it’s only a matter of time before I ban the whole thing in our house. I don’t know what in particular inspired your thread, but that platform makes me quite nervous as the parent of a rather precious child.
The influence of this platform is massive. It's hard to say anything about the content since it changes quickly and is a kind of free-for all ... and use-created which the owners hide behind to avoid really screening or moderating much at all. But more than moderation to ban words or guns or whatever, the way it's all monetized incentivizes making games that are edgy to get people on your game and earn robucks.
And then there are the ads.
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@remote_orb @futurebird I think most of the kids that are successfully targeted tend to lack this type of parenting.
You shouldn't have to watch them all the time or control their behavior. This issue is bigger than individual parenting. We need real communities and accountability for companies (and individual bad actors).
Instead you're mostly abandoned to whatever you as a parent can muster for the duration of your time as one. And, it shouldn't be that way.
There is a kind of predator who knows that a space where kids are encouraged to push boundaries and make edgy jokes (and keep secrets from adults) works totally to their advantage. They look for lonely kids who don't have adults in their life to listen to them and take them seriously. They play that role and then ...
It's nothing new. It's just a new forum.
But it is possible to make it harder for such people. And it's possible to catch them.
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Is the user-made Roblox game "too sexual" for teens? Was a user being exploitative? These aren't things you can solve with an automated filter or AI. It takes real time and attention of adults who can make level headed calls about where the line is in each case.
It also takes effort spent to model good community norms.
Instead a lot of young people have been left unsupervised in a fake online casino where "success" is earning a fake currency by making shock content.
@futurebird in my experience the only way to have such online spaces is publically owned funded and operated- human moderation is hard, and costs too much money for anyone to “invest” in it- there’s no profit in it, i think, and so i feel like that’s why it’s not getting done, why club penguin and toon town got shut down.
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@futurebird in my experience the only way to have such online spaces is publically owned funded and operated- human moderation is hard, and costs too much money for anyone to “invest” in it- there’s no profit in it, i think, and so i feel like that’s why it’s not getting done, why club penguin and toon town got shut down.
I have this crazy notion that managing online spaces should be something kids do in school just like school newspapers and school bake sales. It would mean intentionally creating safe and fun opportunities for young people to learn about how to participate and manage this kind of communication. Just like with face to face communication.
Instead school newspapers are dying with many other extracurricular activities. Because it means investing in human intelligence.
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I have this crazy notion that managing online spaces should be something kids do in school just like school newspapers and school bake sales. It would mean intentionally creating safe and fun opportunities for young people to learn about how to participate and manage this kind of communication. Just like with face to face communication.
Instead school newspapers are dying with many other extracurricular activities. Because it means investing in human intelligence.
The young people who are best equipped to be safe online are also those equipped to be safe offline. And, this is becoming an issue of class. Which is very depressing.
The less money you have the more your life is saturated with ads, full of compromises. To have some fun playing a game for a bit you risk getting a computer virus, identity theft or your kids could get exposed to professional creeps.
Roblox thrives because it's cheap and, for some, the only option.
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The young people who are best equipped to be safe online are also those equipped to be safe offline. And, this is becoming an issue of class. Which is very depressing.
The less money you have the more your life is saturated with ads, full of compromises. To have some fun playing a game for a bit you risk getting a computer virus, identity theft or your kids could get exposed to professional creeps.
Roblox thrives because it's cheap and, for some, the only option.
When I go on someone else's computer or phone that doesn't have all of the ad blockers and filters that I use I'm shocked at the pit of trash I find myself in. The internet is hardly usable at all. Tech savvy, people, and people with some moderate disposable income have walled ourselvfs off from the pit.
And some people pretend like if people "were just more educated" they could install Debian or whatever and get out but it's not that simple.
It's not that simple at all.
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Then there is the role of discord in making some of these problems worse.
I shudder to think about what is happening in secret discords at any moment. The privacy of these online spaces can make them very dangerous.
I wonder if all the bullshit "age verification" laws apply to shit like Roblox too...
@futurebird @ephesossh -
I wonder if all the bullshit "age verification" laws apply to shit like Roblox too...
@futurebird @ephesosshHonestly? I don't think it's doing much of anything. I don't think it's a good way to address these issues at all because what is need is human moderation. Things like very *responsive* chat-lines and reporting tools.
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Is the user-made Roblox game "too sexual" for teens? Was a user being exploitative? These aren't things you can solve with an automated filter or AI. It takes real time and attention of adults who can make level headed calls about where the line is in each case.
It also takes effort spent to model good community norms.
Instead a lot of young people have been left unsupervised in a fake online casino where "success" is earning a fake currency by making shock content.
@futurebird absolutely. I was a game mod many years ago in another online game. When human mods were there, we kept the environment civil, kept bullies from taking over, kept racism out, made sure bad actors, gold farmers (these are usually run using forced labor) etc were not present. Once human mods disappeared, online games basically turned toxic, with many/most games becoming unpleasant spaces in the "global" chat areas. Human mods need to be brought back.
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@futurebird absolutely. I was a game mod many years ago in another online game. When human mods were there, we kept the environment civil, kept bullies from taking over, kept racism out, made sure bad actors, gold farmers (these are usually run using forced labor) etc were not present. Once human mods disappeared, online games basically turned toxic, with many/most games becoming unpleasant spaces in the "global" chat areas. Human mods need to be brought back.
I think people think moderation is this kind of silly trivial thing but the way people get so upset and emotional about being banned or even getting a warning in the most pointless online spaces is amazing. Because it's social too. And people are social creatures. It matters to most people (even many bad actors) to feel like they are "part of" it all.
