Roblox, the online gaming platform wildly popular with children and teenagers, is rolling out an open-source version of an artificial intelligence system it says can help preemptively detect predatory language in game chats.
The move comes as the company faces lawsuits and criticism accusing it of not doing enough to protect children from predators. For instance, a lawsuit filed last month in Iowa alleges that a 13-year-old girl was introduced to an adult predator on Roblox, then kidnapped and trafficked across multiple states and raped. The suit, filed in Iowa District Court in Polk County, claims that Roblox's design features make children who use it “easy prey for pedophiles.”
