Australia banned under-16s from Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok in December, but exempted Roblox. Two months later, Communications Minister Anika Wells has issued an urgent ultimatum to Roblox executives, calling the situation “untenable” and demanding immediate answers about systemic child safety failures.
What Happened
Wells sent a letter to Roblox on February 9, 2026, expressing “grave concern” about reports of children being approached by predators and exposed to harmful material. The minister cited reports of children as young as four being sexually groomed, exposure to graphic, sexually explicit, and suicidal material, and recent criminal charges involving the grooming of hundreds of Australian children across platforms including Roblox.
In an email obtained by The Canberra Times, Wells demanded an immediate meeting with Roblox executives, declaring the current situation “untenable” for Australian parents. Despite safety discussions between Roblox and the eSafety Commissioner throughout 2024 and 2025, systemic issues persist.
Wells challenged Roblox’s “PG” rating, writing to the Classification Board to question whether the 2018 assessment remains appropriate given “graphic and gratuitous” user-generated content. The government will push for transparency on age assurance processes and current restrictions preventing adults from contacting minors.
The Irony
Roblox was exempted from Australia’s under-16 social media ban that took effect December 10, 2025, alongside Discord, WhatsApp, and Lego Play. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, X, Threads, YouTube, Twitch, and Kick were banned.
Australia is now urgently targeting the gaming platform it specifically exempted from restrictions. The same minister who oversaw the social media ban implementation now calls Roblox’s safety failures “untenable” and demands immediate action.
Age Verification Didn’t Solve the Problem
Roblox implemented facial age verification in Australia in November 2025, becoming mandatory in December alongside New Zealand and the Netherlands. The platform restricted chat to narrow age windows, allowing users to message only others in similar age groups, with the stated goal of preventing adults from contacting minors.
The system segregated users into six age brackets (Under 9, 9-12, 13-15, 16-17, 18-20, 21+), disabled chat by default for under-9s unless parents consented, and required all users to complete facial scans or ID verification to access chat features.
Two months later, Wells cites systemic failures and hundreds of children groomed despite these safety measures. Age verification was supposed to prevent adults from contacting children. The minister’s urgent letter suggests it hasn’t worked.
The Scale
Roblox has ~100 million daily users globally, with under-13s accounting for ~40% of 2024 users. The platform has 350 million monthly users, nearly half under 14.
Wells’s letter mentioned recent criminal charges involving the grooming of hundreds of Australian children across platforms including Roblox. Bloomberg reported concerns involve children as young as four being sexually groomed on the gaming service.
A 2024 report by Hindenburg Research described Roblox as an “X-rated pedophile hellscape” that exposed children to grooming and pornography, documenting systemic child safety failures despite Roblox’s stated commitment to protecting young users.
What Australia Wants
Wells said the failures highlight the necessity of a “digital duty of care” that would legally shift the onus onto platforms to proactively ensure user safety, representing a potential regulatory shift beyond age verification and content moderation toward making platforms legally responsible for preventing harm.
The government will push for transparency on how Roblox’s age assurance processes actually work in practice, what current restrictions prevent adults from contacting minors, and why systemic issues persist despite two years of safety discussions with regulators.
The Classification Board review of Roblox’s “PG” rating could result in the platform being reclassified, potentially requiring age restrictions or warnings that would affect how Australian families use the service.
Gaming Platforms as Next Battleground
The intervention signals that exempting gaming platforms from social media restrictions may have been premature. Governments worldwide implemented social media bans while exempting gaming platforms. Australia banned social media for under-16s but exempted Roblox. France is banning under-15s from social media but hasn’t targeted gaming platforms. Spain announced under-16 restrictions on social media but hasn’t addressed gaming.
If Australian children spend more time on Roblox than on banned social media platforms, and if grooming and harmful content persist despite age verification, the question becomes whether governments targeted the wrong platforms.
Roblox has been banned by Qatar, Iraq, and Turkey over child safety concerns. US states Texas and Louisiana have sued Roblox for similar reasons. The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets launched investigations in January 2026 to probe whether the platform was safe for children in the European Union.
What Parents Should Know
Roblox welcomed “the opportunity to inform the Minister of the steps we take to help keep our community safe,” with a spokesman insisting the firm had “robust safety policies and processes to help protect users that go beyond many other platforms.”
The company implemented facial age verification in December 2025 specifically to address child safety concerns. Wells’s February 2026 letter citing systemic failures and hundreds of children groomed suggests those measures haven’t solved the problems they were designed to address.
Australian parents whose children play Roblox should know the platform was exempted from the under-16 social media ban, implemented age verification in December 2025, and the Communications Minister now calls the current safety situation “untenable” despite those measures.
The upcoming meeting between Australian officials and Roblox executives will determine whether the platform faces new restrictions, reclassification, or inclusion in the social media ban it was previously exempted from. Watch whether other countries that exempted gaming platforms from social media restrictions follow Australia’s lead in targeting Roblox specifically.
Sources
Bloomberg
“Australia Ramps Up Pressure on Roblox Over Child-Grooming Reports,” February 10, 2026
SBS News
- “Roblox will meet with government over on-platform grooming,” February 10, 2026
- https://www.sbs.com.au/news/video/roblox-will-meet-with-government-over-on-platform-grooming/fsdlvoy4k
