A senior officer with the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau has cautioned that children are being targeted and exploited on online gaming platforms at a “deeply troubling scale”.
Detective Superintendent Michael Mullen told Prime Time that Gardaí are “seeing grooming, sexual exploitation, and sexual abuse as a result of children being on gaming platforms, and in some cases, moving on to other platforms”, reports RTE.
Det Supt Mullen noted that he was “extremely worried” about abuse he believes is happening “every single day”.
He spoke to Prime Time as part of an investigation into the dangers facing young users of Roblox, one of the most widely used gaming platforms among primary-aged children, reports RTE.
Roblox’s own usage figures suggest more than 150 million people log in daily, with a third of them aged under 13.
The platform consists of millions of games created by users, where players of all ages can interact and chat freely. Unlike most social media platforms that require users to be at least 13, Roblox allows children as young as five to create an account, reports RTE.
Amid rising claims that Roblox is not adequately protecting its youngest players from predators and harmful material, Prime Time set up test accounts for children aged five, nine and thirteen.
At no stage were age checks or parental consent requested during account creation, and once signed in, no prompt appeared to enable optional parental controls, leaving us with Roblox’s default settings, reports RTE.
Across around 12 hours of gameplay on the three accounts, Prime Time encountered dating-style role-play and simulated sexual acts in public toilet games, marked suitable for ages five and up, despite Roblox rules banning such material.
In games rated 13+, we also observed users performing mock lap dances, wearing clothing printed with racial slurs, and discussing suicide—content that Roblox also claims to prohibit, reports RTE.
In a statement to Prime Time, Roblox said “protecting children is a top priority.” The company added that its teams reviewed the examples provided and “removed or suspended content that did not meet our standards”.
Casino-like features were also present in games open to under-13s, including spin-the-wheel tools, loot boxes and gambling-style activities, reports RTE.
In other games, we observed users asking strangers for donations of Robux, the platform’s virtual money used to level up or purchase avatar items.
Det Supt Mullen said Gardaí are encountering cases where children are manipulated by other players, describing incidents where a young person was “forced to buy expensive items for the person who’s making the demands, and then that progresses into the young person being asked to self-harm and being encouraged to take their own life”, reports RTE.
He added that a nine-year-old child who was “playing one of these games online unsupervised, unsupported… reached out to anybody on the game to ask for virtual currency”.
“Of course, there are adult people unverified on the game who pounce on that request and offer to provide that currency for that young girl of nine years old to conduct explicit sexual acts”, reports RTE.
Globally, Roblox is facing heightened scrutiny, with State attorneys in Texas, Louisiana and Kentucky filing lawsuits claiming the platform fails to safeguard minors. More than a dozen families are also suing, alleging Roblox enabled child sexual exploitation.
Earlier this month, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said “Roblox markets itself as a safe digital space of creativity, but in reality it has become a breeding ground for predators”, reports RTE.
Mick Moran, a retired garda who spent a decade at Interpol focusing on child exploitation, said such dangers are not confined to abroad.
“Is Roblox an environment in which grooming and other forms of exploitation of young vulnerable people goes on? Yes, absolutely. 100% it is.”, reports RTE.
Asked whether Irish children are being targeted on the platform, he replied: “Absolutely they are…People have this kind of, ‘oh, that’s happening somewhere else’ attitude, and it is not. It is happening right here in this country.”
One of Moran’s major concerns is that adults and children can join the same games and communicate openly, reports RTE.
Prime Time observed what seemed to be older players interacting with much younger ones in various role-play environments. In one case, we saw a player who appeared older attempting to move a young user to a private third-party messaging service.
Mr Moran, now CEO of Hotline.ie, said the ease with which usernames can be exchanged between users of different ages could enable grooming, reports RTE.
“One of the key elements in grooming, or one of the key elements in even sexual abuse, is exclusive access to the child… before abuse can take place, there must be exclusive access,” Mr Moran said, reports RTE.
“By bouncing the child off Roblox… to any number of messengers out there, then that is a huge red flag”, reports RTE.
Chiara Sanchez, a senior researcher at UK-based organisation Revealing Reality who has extensively evaluated Roblox and its protections, also voiced concerns, reports RTE.
“What we saw was shocking…immediately we saw sexualised behavior… racial slurs, rape jokes, and also what sounded like adults interacting with children”, reports RTE.
Responding to backlash and multiple lawsuits, Roblox announced last week that it will introduce new safeguards requiring age verification for anyone who wants to use the chat feature.
Roblox told Prime Time this will be launched in Ireland in early January and is “designed to further limit communication between minors and adults”, reports RTE.
Ms Sanchez said the update would “minimise the risks of interaction, but it’s not the be-all-and-end-all of stopping inappropriate interactions and risks to children.”
She added that until it becomes impossible for adults and children to occupy the same spaces or servers together, “I think risks still remain”, reports RTE.
Mr Moran welcomed the measure, calling age-gating “a great idea,” but said it will not stop determined offenders. “Will bad actors and properly motivated bad actors be able to get over that barrier? Yes, they absolutely will.”
“One of the ways people who have a sexual interest in children use platforms like this is to gather intelligence about kids, to learn how the kids are talking…That’s an intelligence gathering exercise. It forms part of grooming,” Mr Moran added, reports RTE.
Roblox also told Prime Time that the platform has “a robust set of Community Standards,” that it “limits chat for younger users”, reports RTE.
It said it does “not allow image or video sharing in chat” and uses “chat filters designed to block the sharing of personal information and stop attempts to direct younger users off platform where moderation standards may be less stringent”.
Experts speaking to Prime Time said active parental involvement is essential for online safety, though it can feel overwhelming on a platform with millions of individual games, reports RTE.
“I think the best thing that parents can give children and young people is their attention and get involved in their online life in the same way they would their real life,” Det Supt Mullen told Prime Time, reports RTE.
“Set up the account with your child to make sure it’s suitable for them. Know the games they play, understand the content and features,” he added, reports RTE.
“You don’t need to be a tech expert, just be present. Set clear boundaries. No private chats with strangers”, reports RTE.
Mr Moran agreed, urging parents to “use the parental controls, explain why those controls are necessary, talk about the dangers children can face online, and ensure they have the knowledge to protect themselves”, reports RTE.
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