Sir Bruce Forsyth’s great-grandson has been bombarded with racists slurs and sexual content while playing online games.
Jeremy Martin is the son of late TV performer Sir Bruce’s daughter Debbie Matthews’ son and was horrified when he was watching his own son, Carrick, 10, playing an online game called Roblox as racist words and sexually explicit terms appeared on screen.
Roblox is an online game which allows players to play games created by other subscribers to the platform and they are able to interact together.
The gaming format is said to be hugely popular with children aged nine to 12-years-old but has been infiltrated by adults with bad intentions who have created sexually explicit scenes with avatars found in the game and have posted explicit language.
Jeremy was aghast when he saw some of the content that his 10-year-old son was being exposed to via the gaming platform.
He said Sir Bruce, who passed away in 2017 aged 89, would be especially outraged over the incidents as his own wife, Lady Wilnelia Merced, is from Puerto Rico.
Jeremy said: “There are different games on the Roblox site you can use and they all have their own missions.
“The one he was on was a thing called Draw It, he was playing it at 7am and we have it in the kitchen so we can keep an eye on it - my wife normally watches it with him.
“The computer gives you a word and you have to draw it and the other people there watching have to guess what the word is.
“Someone drew an *rse and then it said ‘gape’ and then it said the n-word twice.”
Jeremy said it’s not the first time he has been shocked by the online games, as a similar incident happened last year.
He said: “It’s terrible. Something similar happened to this when he was nine and I actually complained to Roblox and got rubbish emails back.
“It was another game where you are a DJ and you can shoot the music.
"A song came on and this kid started saying the same stuff, using the n-word. It was coming through the speakers.
“We pay £20 a month for a subscription so you can buy things on each game.
“That’s his pocket money, basically. But come Christmas and birthdays sometimes we spend £200 or £300 on him as that’s all he wants.
“He doesn’t want toys, he wants things he can use in the games.”
Jeremy said the inefficient response he received when he complained to Roblox Corporation previously left him feeling deflated, unheard, and unmotivated to attempt to complain again.
He said: “I didn’t see the point in complaining this time. I got so cross the first time and this was just as bad and they just fobbed me off with emails.
“I want to make people aware as they let their young kids play Roblox and don’t watch what they’re doing.
“They will be seeing these things and their parents won’t know about it and it’s supposed to be an innocent platform.”
He continued: “Carrick didn’t understand what it meant. Now we have to police it ourselves, which is annoying as we can’t give him the freedom he wants.
“I don’t have much confidence in it. There will be thousands of children who have to read and listen to this stuff all the time.”
Meanwhile, Roblox Corporation have insisted they are taking steps to weed out unsavoury content being shared via their games.
A spokesman said: “We have a safety-first culture at Roblox and work tirelessly to maintain a platform that is safe, civil and welcoming for all.
“That includes zero-tolerance for behaviour that doesn’t meet our Community Standards and a robust set of safety features specifically aimed at protecting younger members of the Roblox community.
“We have rigorous, industry-leading chat filters that block inappropriate words or phrases - with even stricter filters automatically applied to children under the age of 13 - and we ensure certain features, such as voice chat, are only available to verified users above a certain age.
“We also empower and encourage parents to determine what is appropriate for their children by providing a suite of Parental Control settings that can be used to restrict who children can interact with (including the option to turn off chat), what experiences they can access, and how much they can spend.
“And we provide parents with dedicated tips and advice on our For Parents pages to help them manage their childrens’ accounts.”
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