Roblox invites its community to build mature experiences for 17+ users
- On Tuesday, Roblox announced that it would allow creators to build mature content designed for users aged 17 and up.
- To use these features, Roblox users will have to pass an age verification process that requires a government ID and a live selfie.
- These experiences for older users will contain more intense violence, romance, crude humour, depictions of gambling and virtual alcohol.
- Roblox Chief Product Officer Manuel Bronstein believes the changes could lead to new growth in content genres that aren’t usually associated with Roblox, like user-created shooting and horror games.
- Bronstein said the change was designed to keep Roblox interesting to young users as they grow older.
- Users can start creating these games straight away.
- Check out our Roblox Online Safety Shareable, ‘All about Roblox’.
- For more, please visit the Tech Crunch website.
Some subreddits are now filled with porn to protest Reddit
- More than 8,000 subreddits went dark last week to protest the company’s API pricing changes and now thousands have reopened.
- Some subreddits have classified themselves as not safe for work (NSFW) to protest Reddit’s recent treatment of the platform’s volunteer moderators.
- As a result, some non-porn communities are starting to receive a lot of pornographic content.
- Users must agree to being 18 years old before viewing subreddits labelled NSFW and on mobile, users must be logged into the app to view this content.
- Subreddits do not have to contain porn to be considered NSFW, they could contain “nudity, pornography, or profanity”.
- Check out our Reddit Online Safety Shareable, ‘All about Reddit’.
- For more, please visit the Verge website.
Eating disorder cases soar since COVID with ‘wealthier teenage girls’ more likely to be diagnosed
- New research has found that eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia were 42% higher than would be expected of teenage girls aged 13-16.
- These disorders were 32% higher for those aged 17-19.
- The number of cases of self-harm was 38% higher than expected among girls aged 13-16.
- The research was carried out by the University of Manchester, Keele University, University of Exeter and mental health research charity The McPin Foundation.
- These findings were backed up by data from eating disorder charity, Beat which said it had seen a 300% increase in calls to its helpline during the pandemic.
- The charity raised concerns over inequitable access to care, with children from wealthier backgrounds more likely to be diagnosed.
- For more, please visit the Sky News website.
The following story may be regionalised.
Almost 2,000 online child sexual abuse reports made in last year
- A total of 1,928 child sexual abuse crimes were recorded in Scotland between April 2022 and March 2023.
- This figure represents a 6.6% increase on the five-year mean.
- Within the same time period, police carried out 709 investigations in which indecent images of children and/or child sexual abuse material were recovered.
- Incidents resulted in a total of 486 arrests and the protection of around 776 children.
- Investigations were carried out by the online CSA enforcement teams with the help of independent charity, Stop It Now! Scotland, which works to support people worried about their own or someone else’s sexual thoughts towards children.
- For more, visit the STV News website.
