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Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse

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Re: Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse

#171

Post by y-c-o-m-b »

foobarian wrote: post #135
y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education will not be enough. They actually teach about this stuff in school and give plenty of warnings believe it or not. I also gave lectures and installed FamilyLink and put restrictions on my router to prevent my child from accessing devices in a way I didn't approve of or when I couldn't adequately supervise it. The sneaky little shit still found ways to circumvent all this both here at home and at school. My c…

Out of curiosity how did they manage to sign up for Instagram? Browser? Asking for a friend

Ah great question, I wondered this myself as there was no phone involved here (in our household) and Instagram has been banned on my network for many years. It was from a friend's phone at school and that same friend later provided my child with an old galaxy tab to bring home, which was cleverly hidden under the carpet beneath the bed with wifi access to our neighbor's internet (provided by neighbor's kid as well). It's amazing the lengths they'll go through to circumvent rules.

EDIT: and if you're wondering where the initial exposure to Roblox came from, it was from an Android tablet I had at the time which was setup strictly for kids games (hence the FamilyLink with time limits and stuff)

Re: Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse

#172

Post by swed420 »

watwut wrote: post #114
swed420 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd just be happy with one constraint and that is to forbid the crony capitalism that is rampant today. But "regulated" capitalism inevitably leads to crony capitalism. What we've arrived at can barely even be called capitalism, and old school capitalism paved the way: https://web.archive.org/web/20220331174542/https://nymag.com...

The crony capitalism was brought to you literally by companies and millionaires scared of regulation and heavily pushing for deregulation. They supported Trump and republicans by large margin, especially financially.

If you think only one of the two parties of capital are to blame for this timeline, I have a bridge to sell you.

Democrats manufactured consent for Trump's rise in a 1000 ways over decades. Neoliberalism delivered us Trump, who is merely a symptom of this broken system.

Dems/Repubs play good cop/bad cop; always in service to capital interests. We have a uniparty, but people are fooled by reasonable election turnout and close elections. Democracy is an illusion in the US.

Re: Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse

#173

Post by jay_kyburz »

acedTrex wrote: post #39
bmurphy1976 wrote: post #6

It's a nightmare managing all this stuff. Roblox, Minecraft, Meta Quest services, Fortnite, the list goes on and on. These companies are not helping us either. Thankfully my son and his friends have somehow iterated away from Fortnite. It's no longer cool so they just stopped playing it. That's one less thing I have to worry about.

Whats wrong with Minecraft, that seems like an odd inclusion in the list?

I was fine with Minecraft until the kids started wanting to install all kinds of mods, which as far as I know are random executables you download from shady websites.

Re: Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse

#174

Post by jvanderbot »

snapcaster wrote: post #123
ACCount37 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Minecraft by itself is benign, but online servers? Oh boy. Full tilt P2W servers, ran by low key cybercriminals, with I Can't Believe It's Not Gambling mechanics targeting children. And Mojang itself is adding fuel to the fire by selling paid mods - for Bedrock only, which is the version most children play. Then there's the usual boon of online gaming - getting to interact with the shadiest characters you've ever met…

I don't really understand why those things are bad? Making your server executable available for dedicated servers is common (and good!) and selling paid mods just seems like selling software to me edit: the private server operators might be bad, but I don't see how this is Minecraft's fault (or how it doesn't apply to every game that allows dedicated servers)

> Minecraft itself is benign

So, I dont think anyone said it was their fault, just that it's being exploited.

Re: Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse

#176

Post by ch2026 »

tschellenbach wrote: post #175

Feels like this should be solved at the iOS/Android/Windows/Sony level. Parents should configure settings in 1 place. Not once for each game.

How is an OS setting going to protect a child from the realities that people on the internet, especially anonymous people, may be creepy?

Re: Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse

#177

Post by thinkingtoilet »

worldsavior wrote: post #40
bmurphy1976 wrote: post #6

It's a nightmare managing all this stuff. Roblox, Minecraft, Meta Quest services, Fortnite, the list goes on and on. These companies are not helping us either. Thankfully my son and his friends have somehow iterated away from Fortnite. It's no longer cool so they just stopped playing it. That's one less thing I have to worry about.

Thankfully? Why don't you just forbid him to play Fortnite? Sounds like your son doesn't listen to you, and that's a problem.

People are downvoting this but it's the correct response. I will never worry about Roblox because my child will never be able to play it at home. Problem solved. I understand that maybe non-technical people might not know to think about these things, but in this crowd this response should be the most upvoted. These things are poinsons. Don't feed your children poison. It's pretty simple. "They'll be left out!" Good! While other children consume poison my child will be left out from consuming poison.

Re: Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse

#178

Post by darth_avocado »

foota wrote: post #158

It's interesting to me to think about a possible system where people in say roblox can only chat with each other by exchanging physical keys somehow. This way, they would be able to chat with their peers from school etc., without the danger or need for as much supervision. I don't necessarily think this is technologically feasible or something that would be accepted, but I think it's an interesting idea.

That’s pretty much the antithesis of online gaming. You’re not ONLY playing with other kids you know.

Edit: There’s two problems that need to be solved. Parents need to not offload all their responsibilities to a multibillion dollar corporation and hope it works 100% of the time. And corporations need to prioritize safety more than they do now. It dumbfounds me how many times I get called the N word on Xbox and nothing happens after I report it. It’s almost 2026, it’s not that hard people.

Re: Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse

#179

Post by [deleted] »

Animats wrote: post #169

> Since 2018, at least two dozen people in the United States have been arrested and accused of abducting or abusing victims they met on Roblox, according to a 2024 investigation by Bloomberg. So about three per year, out of 112 million users? That's a far better track record than the Boy Scouts of America or the Roman Catholic Church. Roblox has a strange demographic problem. Their average user age is around 14. They…

[deleted]

Re: Roblox is a problem but it's a symptom of something worse

#180

Post by ch2026 »

Animats wrote: post #169

> Since 2018, at least two dozen people in the United States have been arrested and accused of abducting or abusing victims they met on Roblox, according to a 2024 investigation by Bloomberg. So about three per year, out of 112 million users? That's a far better track record than the Boy Scouts of America or the Roman Catholic Church. Roblox has a strange demographic problem. Their average user age is around 14. They…

> So about three per year, out of 112 million users? That's a far better track record than the Boy Scouts of America or the Roman Catholic Church.

Yep. I’ve not witnessed something so wildly over exaggerated since D&D was responsible for widespread satanic cults in the 80’s.

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