Technology Secretary says firms must ‘bake’ safety at centre of new products

The Technology Secretary has said tech companies must ensure child safety is at the forefront of the development of new products, as he criticised the Roblox gaming platform for not protecting its users.

Peter Kyle said Ofcom would be telling the US-based gaming platform steps it needed to take to ensure users were protected after US investment firm Hindenburg Research accused it of having lax safety controls which created an “X-rated paedophile hellscape”.

Mr Kyle (Hove and Portslade) had been asked what he was doing to protect children using the platform from online predators.

He said: “Keeping children safe online is the key priority for this Government. The Online Safety Act places strict safety duties on online platforms such as Roblox to protect children from being groomed by online predators.

“Ofcom is the regulator for the regime, and they will set out steps in the codes for the platform to take to fulfil their duties by the end of this year.”

Roblox is an online gaming platform where users can create their own games. The majority of players are under 16, and it is used by hundreds of millions of users every month. Chatrooms are available for users, and although it offers parental controls, there are no age restrictions.

In a report published last week Hindenburg Research, which is looking to “short” the company’s stock, said: “Our in-game research revealed an X-rated paedophile hellscape, exposing children to grooming, pornography, violent content and extremely abusive speech.”

Roblox has rejected the claims made in the Hindenburg report, saying “safety and civility have been foundational” to the company since its inception.

The Online Safety Bill, which has passed through parliament, will require platforms to protect children from harmful content. Ofcom will draw up codes of practice that will enforce the legislation, although the guidance will be voluntary.

Labour MP for Northampton South Mike Reader said one of his constituents was a volunteer moderator on the website. He said his constituent’s group had identified and banned 14,000 accounts involved in child grooming, exploitation and sharing indecent images.

Mr Reader said: “Does the Secretary of State agree with me that while we drive for tech innovation and investment, we must keep online safety at the heart of our strategy?”

Mr Kyle said: “The Online Safety Act and measures that will be coming into force soon are there to directly impact that concern. I want those powers to be used as assertively as possible.

“I have heard just today of another story affecting Roblox. I expect that company to do better to protect the service users, particularly children, on its website.”

Cowdenbeath and Kirkcaldy Labour MP Melanie Ward raised concerns about online safety, as she said the Safer Phones Bill – a private members’ bill due to be presented to the Commons, would help stop young people from being damaged by social media and mobile phone content.

Mr Kyle said: “We must keep children safe and vulnerable people safe when they are online. It is my intention to make sure that safety is baked in from the outset. When it comes to keeping children safe in this country everything is on the table, and I am open minded as to how we move forward in order to achieve a much safer environment.

“Companies releasing products into our society should see it as a privilege, not a right.”

A Roblox spokesperson said: “Safety and civility have been foundational to Roblox since our inception nearly two decades ago, and we have invested heavily throughout our history in our trust and safety efforts. Today, 10% of full-time employees and thousands of contractors are focused exclusively on trust and safety.

“Every day, tens of millions of people of all ages have a safe and positive experience on Roblox, abiding by our community standards.

“The safety of our community, particularly younger members of our community, is our highest priority, and we have a robust set of proactive and preventative safety measures designed to catch and prevent malicious or harmful activity on our platform.

“These protocols include text chat filters in all supported languages to detect and block inappropriate words and phrases, blocking attempts to direct users under the age of 13 off the platform and preventing the sharing of personal information, such as a phone number or address. We also do not allow user-to-user image sharing on Roblox. For more information about our safety efforts, see our recent blog post.”