Social media has definitely transformed our lives and made a huge impact on our future.
Among all the benefits that come with these platforms, such as communicating easily, playing, promoting your business, and many others, people are often concerned about the possibility of exploitation for other purposes.
Games such as Roblox are online gaming platforms that millions of kids across the world use every day, and despite being kid-friendly and interesting for children, they may also pose a potential risk when you factor in all the lurking predators online that lure kids throughout such platforms.
In the text below, you can read more about how to increase online safety and what factors contribute to such incidents.
Factors That Make Gaming Platforms Risky for Children
Online games such as Roblox often pose a threat to children because they don’t require age verification, and predators can pretend to be someone else in order to gain trust from children.
They might try to offer game benefits, money, friendship, or anything that would make children believe them and open up to them.
Pedophiles usually know how children think and may try to empathize with them, give them a sense of safety, try to guilt-trip them in order to make children send inappropriate pictures, give them information about their life, address, and other personal information about their routine.
Because Roblox is a kids’ game, it gives them a false sense of safety, so they might not tell their parents or guardians and address it as an issue.
Parental Responsibilities in Online Safety
Since there is pretty much nothing children can do, parents should be 100% informed about all the possible dangerous situations through any social media platforms or games, and make sure they have passcodes from all the platforms children use daily.
Predators are smart and will often convince children to lie and keep their ‘friendship’ a secret because otherwise it’ll be ruined.
That is why parents need to talk to their kids and make them feel comfortable talking about their feelings and needs so they can open up about it freely without a sense of guilt. Some children require a special form of care because they are shy, more private than others their age, or naive and empathetic.
This makes them the perfect victims for predators online, and knowing your child and how they react in situations is of great importance for preventing abuse from happening.
Besides parents, it’s the teachers and other educational mentors who also play a massive role in explaining to children the risks of using social media and raising awareness about online safety.
Legal Perspectives
We all know how hard it is to be a parent and how much of a responsibility it is. Keeping your child safe is every parent’s priority, and if anything stands in the way, every parent will fight to defend and protect their child.
This brings the discussion to legal actions.
Recent cases have questioned online safety for children regarding inappropriate interactions on popular games such as Roblox. The latest news on Roblox sexual abuse cases provides detailed information on how these gruesome incidents occur and what you (the parent) can do in order to protect your children.
Predators (pedophiles) lurk everywhere. But when you have a game where almost 50% of the entire playerbase is children under the age of 13, you basically have an open invitation for all the scum of the planet. And if Platforms such as Roblox don’t add MORE safety features, and take this MORE seriously, more people (children) will end up hurt.
We can’t let that happen. And this is why more laws, stricter laws, need to be forced upon such companies. Profit CANNOT be placed in front of safety.
In the Roblox case, A LOT of parents or legal guardians filed for a lawsuit claiming that the platform failed to provide safety, allowed harmful situations to happen, and ignored the reports of abuse. If you think your child is one of the victims of online abuse through Roblox or any other online gaming platforms, you have every right to sue and seek compensation for the emotional distress.
On the contrary, you should fight for your child’s emotional safety and do everything in your power to make them feel protected.
Most children who experience sexual abuse, whether it’s physical or emotional, have a hard time confessing and adapting to daily life again, often struggling with feelings of fear, shame, or confusion.
A lot of them face years and years of therapy, and sometimes still don’t come to the feeling of shame. If you know someone who experienced sexual abuse online, please make sure you don’t disregard their feeling and offer them a safe space to share their experiences.
Also, make sure that they are willing to include parents and relevant authorities in a safe and appropriate manner.
Conclusion
Safety MUST be the number one priority when it comes to the online world, especially if we’re talking about children.
And this can’t be achieved by waving promises and people just complaining. What’s required is a combined effort from everyone (parents, teachers, authorities, platform developers, companies running the platforms – everyone). This way, we can reduce any risk our children may encounter online.
By being careful and talking to your kids about their routine and feelings, you will form a connection where a child feels safe to talk and will create a safer digital environment in general.