Child safety remains one of the primary concerns about Roblox’s user-generated content (UGC) platform enters its 20th year.
In fact, during the start of Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki’s keynote on Friday morning, a young man rushed the stage and yelled, “We deserve better” before security removed him from Baszucki’s presence. The youth later noted on Twitter he had been kicked out of the event and was wearing a shirt that said, “Kids deserve better.”
The stunt brought to mind allegations of too many child predators on Roblox, but Roblox insists that safety is its top concern. In a small group interview, Tami Bhaumik noted that one way to make the platform more safe was to have parents and children communicate more about what happens in the platform through a new game-like educational experience dubbed Roblox Family Zone, which has now been played 11 million times.
The experience gets parents and children to play through experiences that teach both about how to deal with online threats together. It’s meant to bridge the education gap between parents and their kids, who have made Roblox extremely popular with more than 123 million daily active users in its most recent quarter — with three out of four users under 18.
Bhaumik, vice president of civility at Roblox, runs the civility team that got started at Roblox in 2019.
“I had a conversation with the mom of an eight-year-old daughter, who was not technical at all, and she started to cry. And she said, ‘I’m terrified, but I can’t protect my daughter in this digital world I know she’s going into.’ And I realized there was an opportunity and a responsibility at Roblox to be able to bridge that education gap. So we have been focused on it.”
Bhaumik noted that Baszucki embraced the word civility and brought it into the company mission, which is to connect a billion people with optimism and civility.
“We are very proud to be dedicated to this mission of empowering parents and kids with digital literacy, mental health and well-being skills, and really understanding and and and knowing how to protect themselves, not just on Roblox but online in general,” Bhaumik said.
Roblox said it introduced 145 safety features in 2025 and it continues to do so. On June 18, it launched Roblox Family Zone as a series of mini games where a parent can play cooperatively with one child at a time. To educate parents, the team created the experience to invite parents to come into Roblox in a non-intimidating way. Family Zone is available in 15 languages.
“They jump in. They’re guided by this cute little antelope creature called Nerba,” Bhaumik said.
Genevieve Johnson, a member of Bhaumik’s team, showed a demo of the experience where the idea is to promote co-play with your child.
“And so the child then becomes the teacher, and you go through a series of missions together, solving problems. And as you go through the world, you’re introduced exactly what Roblox is — all of our parental controls, how we approach safety,” Bhaumik said.
“You’re able to go through different phases that teach you about digital literacy skills in terms of how to stay safe,” she added.
Johnson said the goal was to get parents to play with kids. Parents were intimidated. They didn’t know how to play already. They didn’t have their own accounts, and they didn’t know how to set up parental controls.
“We made this game to actually entice parents to come play with their kids by giving free avatar items for parents and kids to play together,” Johnson said. “I like to tell parents if you don’t have Roblox, what you should do is you go onto Roblox, get your kid to bring it up on their device by typing in “Family Zone,’ and it’ll come up.”
Once the kid gets into Family Zone, then they can actually provide instructions on the kid’s device on how the parent can set up their own account and then join them in game. A 30-second video from Nerba plays to offer initial tips. The space is a virtual hub where kids and parents can engage in different experiences together.
Nerba issues a mission that the child and parent need to go play together, Johnson said.
In the first mission, it shows you how to move the character around with a mouse and keyboard or different controls on your smartphone. After you finish the first two co-play missions, Nerba will give you a new mission to go and learn about parental controls. Nerba talks about the different kinds of parental controls that are available, like how set up daily limits on play for a child, and who the child can chat with or not chat with. Some of the content offers warnings about side deals that allow children to get free Robux, or virtual currency in the game.
“We really want parents to understand that they can make Roblox into the experience that’s right for that particular child, and it might be different. They might have multiple kids,” Johnson said.
Some of the games are focused on STEM lessons. There’s more content coming, including a new model on mental health in collaboration with Koko Cares. It can help kids who have been bullied or may feel like their life is out of their control.
Bhaumik said this is just the first phase of these Family Zone games to help with digital literacy, and more things will be happening next year as Roblox helps kids understand challenges such as fraud, scams, and bullying.
For parental controls, the game can take a parent directly into the parental controls app so they can set limits as needed for the child. The app is designed for all ages and all countries.
As for why the team didn’t do this a decade ago, Bhaumik said Roblox has hit critical mass and the parents council and the teen council provided the needed feedback more recently on how to create the family zone.
“I always think that like kids don’t really want their parents to get in their business and play, but we were really wrong. [They said they] would love our parents to take an interest in what we are doing. It makes us feel seen,” Bhaumik said.
There are also rewards for kids in the form of cute avatar items, and that can incentivize the kids to play alongside their parents. Kids can dress them up and express how they want to be seen. They can play around with wings or bracelets, and Roblox can tell kids and parents are playing based on the number of items they earn. Play sessions last 35 minutes to 45 minutes.
The Family Zone is one of many ways Roblox is trying to keep kids safe. Another is Facial Age Estimation, a tech that requires a player to submit a scan of their face so that Roblox can estimate the person’s age. It’s required for anyone who wants access to chat functions on the platform.
Lawyers representing families who allege their kids have been preyed upon by child predators say the company hasn’t done enough to protect kids, particularly as Roblox becomes a new kind of social platform. Those lawyers have filed dozens of lawsuits against Roblox.