Writing · Child safety and age assurance

Games are where kids socialize now, and regulators know it

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Games have become one of the main places kids socialize online, and regulators and courts are starting to treat them that way.

In April, Australia's eSafety Commissioner sent legal notices to Roblox, Minecraft, Fortnite and Steam asking what they are doing to prevent grooming. The regulator noted that offenders often make first contact in a game and then move children to private messaging apps. In the US, LA County sued Roblox in February, and several state attorneys general have reached settlements with the company. The consolidated federal case over child abuse claims now includes 182 lawsuits.

Grooming in games rarely shows up in a single message. It builds over weeks through friend requests, gifted in-game currency, requests to keep things private, and eventually a push to move to another app. Moderation that reviews messages one at a time misses most of that.

So the protections most likely to work act earlier and look at patterns. Roblox now requires a facial age check to use chat, and adults can't message users under 16 by default. That limits who can reach a child in the first place. And because the riskiest step happens off-platform, sharing warning signs between platforms matters too. The Tech Coalition's Lantern program was built for that, and Roblox and Discord were among its founding members.

The gaming companies that make real progress here will be the ones that measure how often risky contact is prevented, alongside how much content gets removed.

In the handbook

5. Detection and preventionHow do you find harm before users have to report it, and stop it before it happens?
6. Child safety and age assuranceHow do you keep children safe on a product adults use too?
16. Regulation and complianceWhich laws apply to your service, and what do they make you do?

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