ideo game platform Roblox has been declared to be fully complying with the government’s new children online safety regulations after introducing several features, including limiting communication features for underage users.
During a press briefing on Thursday, Communications and Digital Minister Meutya Hafid said Roblox was deemed as complying since its compliance model differed from other platforms, as the government assesses the risk of each platform as mandated by the Child Protection in Digital Space Regulation (PP Tunas).
“We don’t impose a blanket deactivation policy for those aged under 16 [in Roblox], but instead implement a staged communication restriction among children users,” Meutya said in Thursday’s press briefing at the ministry’s office in Jakarta.
To adhere with the regulations, Roblox implements different account systems for users younger than 16, namely “Roblox Kids” for users between 5 and 12 years old and “Roblox Select” for those aged 13 to 15, said the platform’s vice president for global public policy Nicky Jackson Colaco.
Users in the younger category will be restricted from the chat feature. Meanwhile, teenagers in the older category may only communicate with approved family members and friends, while still being prohibited from interacting with strangers.
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Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning.
The platform will start transitioning 23 million accounts owned by under-16 users to either a Kids or Select account. Age check has been implemented through a mandatory facial age estimation to limit chat access since earlier this year.
