Dad left 'disturbed' as 5-year-old girl asked to 'meet' on popular gaming platform Roblox

Parents have shown concerns over the popular mobile game Roblox, which is aimed at young children.

The app is very popular, with schoolchildren now downloading it in their thousands.

Due to its status as a games platform, Roblox has a variety of popular games. As of May 2020, the most popular games on Roblox had over 10 million monthly active players each. As of August 2020, at least 20 games had been played more than one billion times, and at least 5,000 have been played more than one million times.

For most of Roblox’s history, it was relatively small, both as a platform and a company. Roblox began to grow rapidly in the second half of the 2010s, and this growth has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Roblox is part of the slew of metaverse style games released in recent years where users create an online avatar with a username.

It allows users to programme games and play games created by other users.

Gamers can also chat with others in their area via the app, where friends can be added to keep in touch as users play.

Parents have expressed concerns over the chat feature, which has led to some “disturbing messages” and “requests to meet up”.

A Downham man, 28, has a five-year-old daughter who plays on Roblox.

He said: “She kept getting persistent messages from somebody asking if she wanted to go to the park.

“Her reading isn’t great so she didn’t reply - but I felt disturbed when I saw the messages. I now monitor her use of the platform much more carefully.”

Dominic Yare, of West Norfolk, said: “People need to understand it’s a risk.

“I don’t have children of my own but my younger brother and sister play it and I do have concerns.

“They have friends on it that they don’t know and that definitely worries me because you never know who is on the end of the phone.”

NYC Law Firm Bragar, Eagal and Squire is currently investigating Roblox, which is aimed at ages six to 11, as it has been quoted as “the leading platform for paedophiles” in their legal papers.

Though sexual content is prohibited on Roblox, the platform has received substantial criticism for the presence of sexually explicit games and imagery within it.

This content includes items like virtual sex clubs and nightclubs, with creators of said content largely communicating through third-party platforms which cannot be regulated by the Roblox moderators.