Millions of children play on this platform accused of having reams of troubling content and users, but there are hundreds of better alternatives that serve kids’ curious minds • Don’t get Pushing Buttons delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Right before last week’s newsletter went out, a short-selling firm called Hindenburg Research published an extremely critical report on Roblox. In it they accused the publicly traded company of inflating its metrics (and thereby its valuation) and, more worryingly for the parents of the millions of children who use Roblox, also called it a “pedophile hellscape”. The report alleges some hair-raising discoveries within the game. The researchers found chatrooms of people purporting to trade images and videos of children, and users claiming to be children and teens offering such material in exchange for Robux, the in-game currency. Roblox strongly rejects the claims that Hindenburg made in its report. Roblox, for those unfamiliar with the title, is not so much a game as a platform (or, as its corporate communications people would like you to think of it, a metaverse). It claims to have 80 million daily users (a number Hindenburg says is inflated). You log in, customise your avatar, and from there you can jump into thousands of different “experiences” created by other users – from role-play cities to pizza-delivery mini games to cops-and-robbers games to, unfortunately, much less savoury things like Public Bathroom Simulator (which the creator said they made when they were 12 “before I was aware bad people even existed”). Because games on Roblox are created by players, the site must be constantly moderated. The company’s moderation team deals with a tsunami of content ever day. Continue reading...

Campaigners say watchdog must ensure Online Safety Act is rigorous enough, after allegations about gaming platform Child safety campaigners have urged the UK communications watchdog to make a “step change” in its implementation of new online laws after a video game firm was accused of making its platform an “X-rated paedophile hellscape”. Roblox, a gaming platform with 80 million daily users, was accused of lax safety controls last week by a US investment firm. Continue reading...

The safer phones bill could ban companies from applying algorithms for young ‘doomscrolling’ teens Social media companies could be forced to exclude young teens from algorithms to make content less addictive for under-16s, under a new bill with heavyweight backing from Labour, Conservatives and child protection experts. The safer phones bill, a private member’s bill from a Labour MP that has high priority in parliament, will be discussed by ministers this week. Continue reading...

Tech companies aren’t transparent about what they do with our photos – we asked experts about best baby-pic practices Welcome to Opt Out, a semi-regular column in which we help you navigate your online privacy and show you how to say no to surveillance. If you’d like to skip to a section about a particular risk you’re trying to protect your child against, click the “Jump to” menu at the top of this article. Last week’s column covered how to opt yourself out of tech companies using your posts to train artificial intelligence. You’ve got the cutest baby ever, and you want the world to know it. But you’re also worried about what might happen to your baby’s picture once you release it into the nebulous world of the internet. Should you post it? Continue reading...

TechScape’s new writer, why a $60k-a-year middle school banned tech for a week, and how to opt out of AI training • Don’t get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up here Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m Blake Montgomery, the technology news editor at Guardian US. I’m taking over TechScape from Alex Hern, and I’d like to introduce myself and my ideas for this newsletter. Continue reading...

Signatories to online pledge say it offers support in family reckonings over phone usage Classroom peer pressure is a problem for any parent considering a smartphone ban for their child. So when the Smartphone Free Childhood (SFC) movement launched an online pledge to withhold the devices from children until they are at least 14, thousands of parents saw an opportunity to gather moral support for looming arguments. Continue reading...

Meta’s changes include making teen accounts private and ‘limiting sensitive content’. Many say it’s not enough Sevey Morton first got an Instagram account when she was 10 years old. She used it to keep up with friends, but also to follow pop culture trends. Now 16, the San Diego high schooler says all the airbrushed perfection and slickly edited selfies from celebrities and influencers made her hyper-focused on her appearance, causing anxiety and body image issues. “Being exposed to that at a very young age impacted the way I grew into myself,” Morton said. “There is a huge part of me that wishes social media did not exist.” Continue reading...

There has been a huge wave of parental concern about smartphones this year. So do kids without them feel deprived – or more alive? Nothing has been able to stop smartphones taking over our lives and those of our children. But the inevitable backlash is in full flow. It’s not only about family arguments over screen-time restrictions, or the often futile efforts of parents to minimise exposure to adult, radicalising or consumerist content. With the rising perception that phones are addictive and interfere with children’s learning, creativity and concentration, and with more than 97% of 12-year-olds owning a smartphone, schools have been taking action. In February, the UK government issued guidance on smartphones and some schools have since banned them. Also in February, two concerned parents created the WhatsApp group Smartphone Free Childhood. The online community now has more than 120,000 members, “with a local group in every county in the UK and thousands of school groups within those”, according to the co-founder, Daisy Greenwell. Continue reading...

Meta says teen accounts will apply to new users under 16 and restrictions will eventually be extended to existing accounts used by teenagers Meta is putting Instagram users under the age of 18 into new “teen accounts” to allow parents greater control over their activities, including the ability to block children from viewing the app at night. In an announcement made a week after the Australian government proposed restricting children from accessing such platforms, Meta says it is launching teen accounts for Instagram that will apply to new users. The setting will then be extended to existing accounts held by teenagers over time. Continue reading...

At Tenbury High academy the students play tag and football in free time rather than stare at a screen and on the Isle of Wight another school is planning a similar ban Academy chain with 35,000 pupils to be first in England to go phone-free Vicki Dean, the principal of Tenbury High academy, says visitors to her secondary school in the Worcestershire countryside think its pupils appear less mature than others their age because they are running about and playing rather than sitting huddled over their phones. “When I worked at my previous school, I still remember social time was like this,” Dean said, mimicking holding a phone screen in front of her face. But Tenbury is different, with one of the toughest phone-free policies of any mainstream state secondary school in England, and Dean says that has influenced how her pupils act. Continue reading...