Executive shares how they are making online gaming safer for children

JACKSON, Tenn. — Online gaming is a big part of many children’s lives.

Many children come home from school every day and play video games to unwind and have fun. This is how they enjoy themselves, show their creativity and talk to friends.

However, online gaming is way bigger than you may realize. This means many people are online playing these same games as your child. We spoke with an executive of Roblox, one of the most popular online games, about how they are helping.

“Everyday, 90 million people come to Roblox. We want to be the safest place online. And our announcement today is really about giving parents and caregivers more control and clarity over what happens on Roblox,” said Nicky Jackson Colaco, vice president and global head of public policy at Roblox.

One way they are helping is with remote management. With this, parents can control the setting on their child’s game from their own device. There are also multiple others ways they are improving safety.

“We’re giving parents more visibility into their child’s friend list and allowing them to set screen time limits. We’ve introduced content maturity labels so that parents can choose content on Roblox that’s the most appropriate for their kids. And we’ve also introduced chat restrictions,” said Colaco.

Colaco also gave us a few tips in order to get familiar with the games kids are playing, and how to help with safety.

“Just talk to their kids about online safety just the way that we would talk to them about safety in other elements of their lives like crossing the street safely,” said Colaco.

She also says that it could help to play with them for a few minutes every once in a while. Seeing the game that they are playing and understanding why they like it can help you talk to them about safety.

Colaco also said that Roblox ensures that children can never talk 1 on 1 outside of a game.

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