No one in the community asked for this - and both minors and adults alike in the community have been deeply uncomfortable with this announcement. The age of consent for internet activity is 18 - throughout the entire United States due to legislation passed in the 1980s. Roblox's announcement shows the community that enough is enough - and there should be wider reform to ensure vulnerable people are protected.

 

In mid 2023 - Roblox via blog post announced the creation of experiences geared towards people 17 years or older. Over the past 2 years, games involving the consumption of alcohol have reached prominence, and hundreds of players have fostered connections as a result in these games. 

Some of these connections have been for better where meaningful, and reasonable friendships have been created, and others have been problematic - involving barrages of older people harassing people under the age of consent. This doesn't mean that developers who own bar-related games explicitly condone activities such as those, and with this petition we are doing anything but implying that. Roblox's adult-orientated experiences being fixed at the age of 17 rather than 18, and generally out-of-touch moderation makes it both hard for both developers and players alike. This is because a a good faith developer who owns an experience but is attempting to make an honest living can't at will change the age of their games to 18 or 21 on their own to protect people, they are forced to follow Roblox's line of it being at 17. As the Roblox platform continues to grow over the years, it also may be wise to allow developers to at will restrict their games to be both playable and unplayable at any age of their choosing over 18. For example, someone at 56 will have nothing in common with an 18 year old - especially in a 'dating' experience - and many developers would be uncomfortable with allowing that to even unintentionally happen and this would be extremely necessary for harm reduction. Both are technically 'adults,' but one obviously has an extreme power imbalance over the other. 

The drinking age in the United Kingdom is 18 years of age, and the drinking age in the United States is 21 years old. The generally agreed upon age of adulthood and consent is usually agreed to be 18, in many cases older. Additionally, alcohol being promoted to people who are legally minors is not generally good and should at the very least by raised by 1 year - to the age of adulthood.

In September of 2023 [1], Roblox announced that it would be opening dating-related experiences - but the age of these experiences would start around the age of 17+. This was not met with much of any pleasant reception from the community, [2] as this would theoretically allow someone well into adulthood to begin a intimate with a 17 year old in high school, under the age of consent in numerous jurisdictions, and completely under the age of consent for the internet in the entire United States. Even more disappointing is the fact that the term "real life relationships" has been named, which would create the risk of even more real life harm. Additionally, this beginning in a space such as the internet where there is a lack of supervision of children and or out of touch moderation which goes after what isn't really the problem, this makes it even easier for people to be groomed. 

People have gotten unnecessarily flagged, censored, and muted for saying words like 'damn' and making jokes light humor - and in many cases, unnecessarily and unusually permanently banned and terminated. The moderation system has in many cases been inconsistent, untransparent, and completely out of touch with the needs of 17+ individuals and the wider Roblox community. It's gotten to a point that there's even a whole community dedicated to these completely unjust bans. [3]

All of those actions by players, are nothing compared to the potential harm that would be caused by having dating experiences start at 17. Children should not be on dating experiences, especially in a game which was initially created for younger audiences, and on the internet - where anyone can pretend to be anyone. The age of consent for internet activity is 18 in the entire US [4] - and 17 is absolutely not that. Even more concerning is that of recent, David Baszucki has stated that he has not ruled out nudity on Roblox, which we as players are absolutely against.

As players of the wider Roblox community, we are requesting that the age of Roblox adult-orientated experiences be raised to the age of 18. And as players, we are also with this petition mainly expressing our extreme and total discomfort with dating experiences of any kind being at the age of 17 and rejecting the announcement made by Roblox - directly putting our foot down and asking for our voices to be heard. We are also calling for the immediate shut down of all dating games, and efforts to create dating games on Roblox for any reason. Immediate and direct action is necessary in a case such as this, to protect minors, and ensure that the Roblox Corporation is in touch with the people who power their platform.

Our full list of demands:

• Raise all adult orientated content from being 17+ to being 18+ so there are no dating or drinking games for minors.
• Allowing developers of adult-orientated experiences to set custom age limits, so barely legal teenagers are not taken advantage of by middle aged adults in power imbalanced situations. (i.e. an 18 year old and a 50 year old)
• A commitment to banning all porn, which David Bazuscki has not ruled out allowing alongside dating on Roblox.
• All dating games, of any kind being removed from the platform - as the community has strongly been against it and many will be harmed.
• The complete cessation of all lawfare efforts against Schlep, and other similar whistleblowers who work with law enforcement to catch pedophiles. The unbanning and reinstating of all of Schlep's accounts, including his childhood Roblox account.

Additionally - we support Congressman Ro Khanna's effort to protect and save children on Roblox and give players a seat at the table. Let it be known however that this movement accepts support from all walks of life, red, white, or blue - as the welfare of children is something we all must universally band together to protect irregardless of political affiliation.