ROBLOX RESPONDED

We are aware of instances where parents are age checking on behalf of their children, leading to kids being aged 21 plus. Oh, shoot. They saw my video. So Roblox responded. That's right, chat.

We're about to hop into it. Roblox has issued a response to everyone complaining about the age verification update. And look, before we get into this, before I watched the video, before we talk about it, before anything, I just wanted to say, this is great. Whether we like what Roblox says or not, the fact that they're communicating with us and talking with us and explaining why they're doing stuff, like, that's great. We can disagree with them, we can complain about it, we can criticize them, but the fact that they're actually talking to us like dude they used to not do that right there They've never done that in years so the fact that they're like actually having these conversations with us

That's great. So shout out the roblox for that. I'll give you that one But anyway, let's hop into this as you know yesterday roblox released actually two days ago now roblox released the age check update You have to age. Why does this music sound sad? It's like no You know how this works you do an age check it scans your face Basically assigns you to an age group and then you can only talk to people in that age group since that update came out

Oh gosh, I don't know if i've ever seen roblox players this mad before like I just want to show this This is the forum page where Roblox announced the update They have I'm not even joking. Let me let me zoom on in here if I zoom in they have 44 likes and how many responses do they have so 44 likes and 2,500 responses that That's crazy. I've read honestly the majority of this thread today

And I I could barely find a single positive comment Most people are just really not happy with this. They even got John Doe over here. You guys suck bro John Doe Brought out John Doe here. It hasn't even been a day and roblox already feels like a ghost town No, this here is actually really interesting. So this guy here. His hasn't even been a day and Roblox already feels like a ghost town. Now this here is actually really interesting. So this guy here, his name is Adam. He works with uh, big games or previously worked at big games, obviously Pet Simulator. And here are the stats for that. So

take a look at this graph. So you can see here that the average text chat ratio is about 85%. So 85% of players use text chat in this game. As you can see, it's a pretty stable line. And then if we zoom in, we can see it just falls off a cliff once the age check update comes out. And now it's at 36%. It went from 85% of all players using text chat to now just 36.5% and it's dropping. It's still going down.

I tweeted, I said, that's a huge drop. I'm guessing most kids didn't do the age check. Someone on the forums also shared the screenshot here of their game. Their average text rate was 77% and as of this update, it is, it dropped down quite a bit.

It dropped down to less um, less than 40%. So again, uh, over half a few parents have also commented on this. This is a Jessica. She is, um, Henry's mom, as it says in her, uh, her bio right there, Henry's mom. So shout out to Henry's mom. I understand what Roblox is trying to do, but it only helps if it works correctly. I have a child that should be in the 9 to 12 range. It put him as

17 turning 18 soon. He'll only be able to chat with 16 plus year olds. That is that that's a huge Discrepancy there like that. That's that's a huge mess up and it's not just that mom either I've seen hundreds of posts where the AI is just putting people as the wrong age and I'm not talking like one to two years. I'm talking like they're 10 and the AI thinks they're an adult. Like that, that's a, that's a big difference. I said this before, but like, if you're going to do an update like this, it can't get it right 95% of the time. It needs to get it right.

99.999999% of the time. And like, from what I'm seeing, it doesn't seem like that's the case. Maybe I'm just seeing it wrong though. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Roblox is right. What do I know? I dropped out of college. Anyway, Roblox saw the drama and they tweeted this out. They said, here's an update from the CEO, David Buzuki on age verification and what's next for trusted connections and more controls for critter. That's a good point too. And we're going to talk about this a little bit later on, but parents can't talk to their kids in Roblox right now. Like that's not, it's it's not, it's not possible.

So like if you're a parent who plays Roblox with your kid, well, you can't,

you can't talk to him anymore, at least for right now, which is crazy. Anyway, Hey, welcome. This is Dave Buzucki, Roblox CEO, bringing you another Roblox Today update. Today's Thursday, January 8th, and we wanted to share some of the progress on our age check rollout. We're tracking on a similar curve in the US and the rest of the world on adoption, just as we saw in Australia and New Zealand when we did the rollout last month, I want to share a few things we have

planned as part of what he means by that is last month, they found that about 50% of all players did the age check and 50% did it looking at this graph though. It seems to be a little bit higher than 50%, but again, this is just one game. I don't have all the data, but that's what roadblocks says. Let's get back to the video. Let's keep watching the rollout.

First we're expanding how trusted connections enable communication with friends and family with either a phone contact or a QR code, stay tuned on this.

Second, we're going to be basically saying that parents will be able to play with their kids. I guess we'll go ahead and talk about this. Why did they not do this before they did this up? Like, why would you not make it so parents can play with kids before you release this update?

It, you know what I mean? Like, like, why aren't we doing it afterwards? Cause right now at this moment, parents can't play with kids. Why, why would you not release that before you took that away?

You know, you know what I mean? Like, am I making sense here? Expanding the control creators have to help users match with other users of similar ages in game instances. And third, we're exploring.

Basically what he said there is they want people who can chat with each other to be put in the same server, which is what we talked about. It's not happening right now. Cause I've been testing. It's not happening, but again, like, why would you not do this before the update came out? I don't know.

I don't know.

Being a pathway for verified influencers to have conversations with their fans. Fourth, we're working on giving.

That's cool. I mean, I'm not, I'm not verified. I don't have a check Mark, but I mean, that's cool. That's good. visibility on chats in their experiences to better understand and moderate their experiences. Remember age estimation. That's a good thing too, because right now developers can't moderate their own game. Cause if you're, if a developer is like 30 and there's a bunch of kids in the game,

they can't see the chat. So if the kids are saying something bad, they can't do anything about it. You know, it's fast, it's simple, and we don't retain any images in the process and you can also use I believe him when he says that Roblox doesn't retain any images and that they don't keep our data I believe him. I don't believe persona though. That's the problem like I believe him when he says We're not storing your data this other company though. That's actually doing the the age check persona They're the people who's doing it. I don't trust them that there are the people I don't trust I trust him

I don't trust persona is your ID in addition to facial age checking and you can also use parental consent if you're under 13 to help set your age We have more fast follows on our age check release on the way, and we'll be sharing this update in our developer forums with more specifics when ready. We're really excited for what this change means

to your digital safety, and once again, thankful to all of you in our community for supporting us and engaging with us as we work constantly to improve our platform and your experience on it.

Cool, okay, so that's what David Buzuki said. Now, once again, they got community noted basically saying facial age estimation has repeatedly shown major flaws, including being easy to bypass, producing false flags, and causing moderation issues

in online games and platforms. And that's not the only thing, because Roblox also released an update today saying that they published a roadmap of changes for the age check system. So let's go ahead and let's see what a see what Roblox says here. Roblox says we know that changes to foundational systems like chat can be a significant adjustment for social games and communities. Yeah, we wanted to share more on our upcoming roadmap that your feedback has been instrumental in shaping. Okay, let's see what Roblox says here. So Roblox says that the community wants to be put together

with players who are able to chat. So if I join a game, I want to be put in a game with other people who can chat with. They said that today, starting today, they are actively working on this, making the system more effective at matching users who can chat. Okay, that's good I'm very happy to hear that. That's that's that's really good They said that the community wants to be able to chat with friends and family across age groups I love how they say in experience chat, bro

Just say in game like chat with friends and family in game Like why are we saying experience chat like what the heck is an experience chat? You know what? I mean, man, like this this always gets me heated. It's a just say in-game Why do we need all these mumbo-jumbo? It's in-game bro like chat with friends and family in-game see how much easier that is to understand than chat with friends and family inexperienced chat like Every time every time I get heated over this dude. I got a chill so starting in February

We're going to enable users to chat with trusted connections with with dude I'm for all these mumbo-jumbo corporate words, man. I can't even read it starting in February We're going to enable users to chat with trusted connections in experience chat across age groups Basically what they're saying is starting in February, you will be able to chat with trusted connections in game, because again, as of right now, parents cannot chat with their kids.

Why, why are we doing that in February? That probably should have been done before this update came out. You know what I mean? So like parents just can't chat with their kids on Roblox for like a whole month? Like that kind of sucks. Here's the big one here.

So for users under 18, linked parents can correct the age of users who are put into the incorrect age group. So if you are in the wrong age group, your parent is apparently able to fix that. It says 13 plus users can also use government issued photo IDs to correct and verify the age on their account. I look, this is something that's always confused me.

What 13 year old has a government issued photo ID? I, when I was 13, nobody in my school had a government issued photo ID. Maybe that's just like from where I'm from. Maybe it's common in other areas. I don't know. I, my first photo ID that I ever got was my driver's license. And that was at like 15, 16.

I don't know what kind of 13 year old has, has a government issued photo ID. You know, no, here's the big one here. Roblox may periodically recheck a user's age if fraud is suspected, or if we see signs of potential age misrepresentation. As part of our ongoing investment in safety, we will also be developing and improving detection for such behavior. We are aware of instances where parents are age checking on behalf of their children, leading to kids being aged 21 plus. Oh shoot, they saw my video! Oh shoot!

We are working on solutions to address this and we'll share more here soon. I don't know how they're going to fix that. Like what are they, like how do you fix that? Like do they have an AI that detects your voice and if your voice sounds really high pitched then it's like, hey you haven't hit puberty yet, you're probably, you know, like 10 years old.

Or is it based on like how you type? Like maybe if you type a certain way, thanks. You're a kid.

I don't know.

Oh, dad.

I don't know how they're going to, I don't know. I don't know how they're going to do that. I legitimately have no idea, but yeah, that is a, uh, that is a very big So I mean it's it I guess it's a good thing that they're aware of it and the replies someone posted this video here I actually haven't seen this. What is this ain't no way this works wait passing or wait What does that say something bypassing roblox age verification? Okay estimating your age this may take a few seconds ain't no way this works We estimated your age is 21 or older wait. no, dude. Oh, I see what he did

He drew he drew wrinkles on his forehead and okay Wait, is there a cut in there? Wait a minute. Is this edited? Hold on. Wait, I don't see any cuts I mean it could still be edited but like that looks legit, dude I don't know but I mean at the very least I'm glad to see roblox, you know responding and communicating. That's good You know, we got that going for us. Also real quick I want to make it clear

My problems with this update because like I again I don't want it to seem like I'm just hating to hate number one I don't trust persona. They're the people that are doing theometric data, I don't trust that company. I'm sorry. I'm never going to trust that company. I'm just not. Which, by the way, I should point out, Persona actually has ongoing lawsuits against them right now.

This is an ongoing lawsuit. And let me read what the lawsuit's over here, okay? In February 2024, a class action lawsuit was filed in Illinois alleging that Persona collected and stored biometric data such as facial geometric skins from DoorDash delivery drivers without their consent. So, yeah, I don't trust them when they say we're deleting your data. I'm sorry, I don't.

And then number two, my main issue with this, I don't think the AI is good at actually detecting people's age. If this AI had like a very close, a near perfect score at guessing people's age, then okay, this is a different conversation. But I just don't think the system works. It's just, it's not good enough. It's not there.

There's too many issues with it. There's too many problems. The fact that a kid can just get their mom or dad To give them their ID and then just get ranked and put with adults like that's that's a really big problem And as of right now, I'm just seeing a whole bunch of negatives for the platform. I'm seeing a whole bunch of downsides I'm not convinced. This update is actually providing any any good stuff I'd like is it actually stopping adults from talking to kids?

From what I've seen, no. Doesn't seem like it's doing anything except making the platform worse. But again, I don't have all the data. Maybe I'm wrong. And at the end of the day, I'm just a guy that dropped out of college to make Roblox videos.

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