“My first message would be, if you’re not comfortable, don’t let your kids be on Roblox. That sounds a little counter-intuitive, but I would always trust parents to make their own decisions,” the company’s director noted.
As a parent, that actually seems reasonable. Now watch everyone go nuts.
The problem with this line of thinking is that it applies to literally anything: “If you’re not comfortable, don’t let your kids smoke”. A lot of parents are shit or just don’t care to micromanage their kids’ life. That’s where the government needs to step in and decide what is ok for the kids to be exposed to or not.
Parents ultimately always have the veto choice, but whether Roblox is appropriate for kids to begin with is the real crux of the issue. The CEO just doesn’t want that discussion to happen for obvious reasons.
I see the goal of parenting is not to insulate or protect your children from the world and its infinite threats. Instead parents should equip their children with good judgment by the time they’re adults. It’s impossible to put up enough bubble wrap to stop fools from injuring themselves. You rightly point out smoking due to the addictive nature of nicotine, which is an extreme example. Roblox, we can both agree (I bet) is less extreme. At the end of the day you cannot legislate everything and need to pick and choose the worst offenders, which I do not see Roblox making the cut. Should we try to rid the world of sharp rocks through legislation? Where’s the line? It falls in the screen time and wild internet categories for me, which do need to be managed by me. The best solution is teaching good judgment and modeling good behavior, and there’s really no way around the hard work it takes to parent. Roblox shouldn’t be blamed for parents who do not or cannot spend time with their children to get it right. You’re not wrong, we simply differ on where to draw the line.
I agree. Doesn’t seem like an outlandish take at all. Parents should be involved in their kids’ gaming choices, especially if there’s online interactions or lootbox/gacha components.
Offloading parenting to corporations is just a terrible idea all around.
Ellie Gibson - from the Scummy Mummies podcast - said Mr Baszucki’s message risked sounding “a bit of a get out”.
“It’s much easier said than done, especially when all their friends are playing it,” she told the BBC.
That’s wild to me. “Your platform isn’t safe.” “So don’t let your kids use it.” “But all their friends are on it!”
Maybe talk to and raise your kids to think for themselves, while making sure they don’t endanger themselves on the Internet?
There are plenty of things my friends were doing that I wasn’t allowed to join in growing up.
Yeah, exactly.
Reminds me the ol “if all your friends jumped off a bridge would you do it too?”
Some parents these days seem to think the solution is that you shouldn’t be able to jump off the bridge in the first place.
Yeah, I didn’t have a phone until a few years after my peers because my mother knew damn well I’d go cause problems for the whole family if I was on the internet. Too social lol
Exactly! My kids have never and will never be on Roblox.
It’s a platform. There are fetish games on it. It mystifies me how parents let their children freely access unmoderated content.
