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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

According to Roblox's S-1 filing, they want to move their customer base up from the current average age of 13. Age verification is for older users, so they can be less restricted. Roblox has a large outsourced "moderation" operation, and is working on an AI system that can bring down the ban hammer in 100ms after saying a bad word.

Tencent already does this in China. Tencent owns 49% of Roblox. So the technology is available.

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> According to Roblox's S-1 filing, they want to move their customer base up from the current average age of 13.

I'm guessing that's because things like COPPA don't apply to 13+ and identity verification lets them start building accurate PII profiles for children the day they turn 13. What a nasty business.

As long as I can remember, you could attest that you’re over 13 on Roblox with zero proof and that would grant them the right to collect data anyways.

I think the goal here is to expand into 18+ where there’s less need for chat moderation (save for slurs) and game moderation, while still having a sandboxed environment where parents are comfortable letting their kids use without exposure to the 18+ content.

Fuck China as an exemplar for anything moral or legal!!

Given this angle I wonder if Roblox is actually hoping for rampant falsifications so they can keep their underage players but also tell regulators that they are protecting minors from possible exposure to harmful content.

Wow - I had no idea that Tencent owned that much of Roblox.

Now I'm even more wary of sending my ID to a company that's owned by another company that's owned by a repressive government and can influence how anyone in the chain can do business.

Tencent owns 49% of Roblox's Chinese operations, which is a subsidiary, not the entire company.

Ah, right. I just checked the S-1.

Lol, does it really take an entire AI system to autoban someone who says a bad word?

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