I realized I hadn't looked at my kid's Roblox account in months and found some friends I didn't recognize. The police warned that contact often moves to unmonitored platforms. We need better parental controls for friend requests and in-game chat.
Saw the news that Pennsylvania State Police in Allegheny County unveiled a program specifically about Roblox and online predators this week. A trooper said at their safety events that ten minutes could not go by without a parent asking about Roblox. That hit me. My kid has been playing for about a year. I thought I had it set up right: under-13 account, privacy settings locked down, parent PIN. But I had not actually looked at the account in months. Trusting the settings to handle it. So I logged in. Found some friends I did not recognize. Games outside what we had talked about. Nothing alarming in isolation, but enough to make me realize I was on configure-and-forget mode rather than actually paying attention. The thing from the police warning that stuck with me: Roblox is usually just the starting point. Contact gets initiated through in-game chat or friend requests, then moves to Discord or Snapchat where there is no parental control at all. You would never know unless you were watching the friend list. When is the last time you actually logged into your kid's Roblox account and looked around?