Just days after launching, Roblox’s much-hyped AI-powered age verification system is a complete mess.
Roblox’s face scanning system, which estimates peoples’ ages before they can access the platform’s chat functions, rolled out in the US and other countries around the world last week, after initially launching in a few locations in December. Roblox says it is implementing the system to allow users to safely chat with users of similar ages.
But players are already in revolt because they can no longer chat to their friends, developers are demanding Roblox roll back the update, and crucially, experts say that not only is the AI mis-aging young players as adults and vice versa, the system does little to help address the problem it was designed to tackle: the flood of predators using the platform to groom young children.
In fact, WIRED has found multiple examples of people advertising age-verified accounts for minors as young as 9 years old on eBay for as little as $4.
After WIRED flagged the listings, eBay spokesperson Maddy Martinez said the company was removing them for violating the site’s policies.
Roblox did not respond to requests for comment. However, Roblox addressed some of the criticism in an update on Friday, writing: “We are aware of instances where parents age check on behalf of their children leading to kids being aged to 21+. We are working on solutions to address this and we’ll share more here soon.”
Roblox announced the age verification requirement last July as part of a raft of new features designed to make the platform safer. The company has come under intense pressure in recent months after multiple lawsuits allege the company failed to protect its youngest users and facilitated predators to groom children.
The attorneys general of Louisiana, Texas, and Kentucky also filed lawsuits against the company last year making similar claims, while Florida’s attorney general issued criminal subpoenas to assess whether Roblox is “aiding predators in accessing and harming children.”
Roblox claims that requiring people to verify their ages before allowing them to chat to others will prevent adults from being able to freely interact with children they don’t know.
While the process is optional, refusing to do it means a person will no longer have access to the platform’s chat functions, one of the key reasons most people use Roblox.
To verify their ages, people are asked to take a short video using their device’s camera, which is processed by a company called Persona that estimates their age. Alternatively, users can upload a government-issued photo ID if they are 13 or older.
Roblox says all personal information is “deleted immediately after processing.” However many users online say they are unwilling to conduct age verification over privacy concerns.
Peope who have verified their ages are only allowed to chat to a small group of other players around their own age. For example, those verified as under 9 can only chat with players up to the age of 13. Players deemed to be 16 can chat with players between 13 and 20.
The company initially rolled out the AI-powered age verification system in Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands in November, but this week Roblox revealed that just half of all players verified their ages using the system.
In the days since the update was rolled out globally, players and developers have flooded forums, Reddit, and social media platforms like X and TikTok with complaints about the system.
WIRED has reviewed hundreds of posts from players and parents claiming that the system has misidentified players’ ages.
One Roblox user, who says they are 23 but were misidentified as a 16- to 17-year-old, wrote on X, “I don’t want to be chatting with fucking children.” Another alleged they are 18 but Roblox “still thought I was 13 to 15.”
In response, another X poster wrote: “I have a full-ass beard and it put my alt on a 13-16 age range.”
Others said the age verification system had placed young children in the adult category, with one person on X claiming that their 10-year-old sibling had been placed in the over-18 category.
Players have also shared videos showing how people have tricked the system to get verified without sharing their real faces, instead using avatars or, in one case, a photo of deceased Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain. In one widely shared clip, a young boy who has drawn wrinkles and stubble on his face with black marker is given an age rating of 21+ by the system.
“I’ve seen a variety of posts online with suggestions for tricking the age verification system, but I think the most widespread danger is the large number of accounts that have been mistakenly filed into the wrong age category, and the new challenges for parents and in-game moderators to see if children are being exploited in the chat,” says Ry Terran, an independent extremism researcher who closely tracks networks that have been exploiting Roblox to target young children.
Roblox has said it will randomly recheck people’s age if they suspect they have made an error.
“Roblox may periodically recheck users’ age if fraud is suspected or take appropriate action if there we see signs of potential age misrepresentation,” the company wrote. ”As part of our ongoing investment in safety, we will also be developing and improving detection for such behavior.”
The company did not explain how this rechecking would happen or if users would be notified.
Roblox’s official developer forum has been flooded with thousands of negative comments about the updates, with the vast majority calling for the update to be reversed and for Roblox to listen to its users.
Many developers also shared how chat activity on their games had fallen off a cliff since the update, with one developer showing how the number of players who used the text chat function had dropped from an average of 85 percent to 36 percent.
Some users described the experience of playing games on the platform since the update as “lifeless” and “a total ghost town.” “It just feels dead,” one TikTok user said. Other users have been protesting the changes in Roblox itself.
“Why are we still pushing this change?,” one developer wrote in response to Roblox’s response to criticism of the rollout. “Nobody wants this godawful change and it is only harming your core userbase instead of providing any safety. Roblox is inherently a social platform and these recent changes have pushed us into a future of no privacy and censorship rather than communication and … playing fun games.”
The post Roblox’s AI-Powered Age Verification Is a Complete Mess appeared first on Wired.
