The gaming platform, Roblox, is extremely popular among children and young people worldwide. But some games contain violent and explicit content. An expert explains the risks.
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00:00Design your own Mars rover and explore the red planet.
00:03Not only an adventure for young users on Roblox, but also educational.
00:07But then there's a very different Roblox world.
00:11This so-called condo game is all about Roblox avatars having sex.
00:16Exploring Roblox shady worlds is the focus of researchers at Penn State
00:21University in the US.
00:22As part of the project, they gather data on user-generated games, for example on
00:27Roblox and Fortnite.
00:29They show us how it works.
00:33They scroll through Discord, a popular forum for gamers.
00:37Some users share links to the worlds they've created on Roblox.
00:41From there, it doesn't take long.
00:46Select your age, no proof required, then gender.
00:50Inside, users land in a lobby in which players offer their avatars for virtual sex.
00:56Elsewhere on Roblox, there are games replicating violent events, like this one
01:01made to simulate the 9-11 terror attack.
01:07There was also a game recreating the mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand,
01:11where a self-avowed white supremacist killed 51 people in two mosques.
01:16Roblox removed the game, but not before it was seen and played.
01:21This is Yubo Kou.
01:22He heads the research project at Penn State.
01:25He says children don't understand that the violence they see in games is
01:29problematic outside of them.
01:32It is concerning because, well, they are sort of normalizing this, and then they
01:37accept these types of problematic values, like extremist values or racist values.
01:43Typically, the games on Roblox are harmless.
01:46But Yubo Kou has spoken with children who have seen violent depictions.
01:51They were really troubled.
01:53They felt afraid to directly reach out to their parents.
01:57There's another concern, too.
01:59Platforms like Roblox are actively used by extremists to reach out to and recruit children.
02:07They can create these types of problematic virtual worlds and then
02:13use these virtual worlds as a site for them to recruit and to indoctrinate and
02:19to further engage unsuspecting child players.
02:24Those child players become both victims and also perpetrators.
02:29With his project, Yubo Kou and his team want to raise awareness about the risks of gaming.