This story contains mature themes.
A concerned mom posted a viral video on TikTok after finding inappropriate messages sent to her daughter on Roblox. She urges parents to check their kids’ Roblox settings.
Allie Whitworth (@alliexwhitworth) has reached over 2.2 million views and 183,000 likes on her video.
Whitworth has an on-screen caption on her video that says “Roblox PSA to parents.” She captioned her video, “It continues.”
At the start of her video, Whitworth refers to a previous video she posted when she first noticed an issue with her daughter’s Roblox.
Roblox is a massively popular, worldwide gaming platform geared toward children.
She prefaces that she feels like she has a “pretty good grip” on her kids’ electronic and social media usage, and checks their accounts frequently.
At first look, Whitworth found a message sent through a private server to her daughter on Roblox from an “older user.” She says the user was “threatening her to respond in a certain way, or she would come find her.”
The user was able to add her daughter into this group by sending her a friend request.
As Whitworth was digging more into who the user was, she noticed that the user’s most accessed game is one called RoChat, Talk to Strangers. Whitworth says Ro-meet is a “chat room rated for all ages on Roblox.”
Whitworth decided to test out this Roblox feature herself using her daughter’s account.
“Within 15 seconds an inappropriate message was sent,” she says, “And then I tested what you can type, and hardly anything is blocked.”
Next, she explains how there is a feature on Roblox where parents can access their kids’ servers to “see what they’ve been into and what they go into the most.”
At first, Whitworth entered a room called “Bayside High School,” that her daughter had entered frequently, because it was referenced by the person who sent her a friend request.
“When I tell you I’m disgusted,” she adds, “There are chats and servers within the Bayside High School, one that’s called Spicy Chat.”
Whitworth says the “spicy chat” feature has sections for “Boys looking for boys, girls looking for girls, love island.”
She says there are multiple inappropriate references being sent frequently through this chat room.
“That means your 4-year-old can get on it,” she says. “You’re allowed to do voice changing on there, you’re allowed to send video chats.”
Whitworth adds that, “I have Twitter, and I don’t even see this [expletive] on Twitter.”
She says this video is another reminder for parents to “go report stuff, go see what servers and chat rooms they’ve been in.”
Even if you have filtered your child’s Roblox settings, Whitworth says “all of this stuff is accessible.”
“This is literally a pedophile’s dream fantasyland to do what they wanna do,” she says before ending her video.
@alliexwhitworth It continues. PSA. #roblox #psa #parentsoftiktok #momsoftiktok @Roblox ♬ original sound – allie whitworth
After receiving backlash from TikTok viewers, Whitworth posted another video explaining more of the story.
A few viewers criticized Whitworth for “not setting security,” on her kids’ devices.
One comment said, “I’m sorry but you can’t complain if you don’t set your kids security settings on devices. Why are you shocked?”
To this, Whitworth explains that she did have security settings on her kids’ devices. She says she had “parental controls on, and chats off.”
Since chat settings were off, Whitworth says that in her previous video she was referring to “the servers that my daughter had access to,” not a direct message.
With parental controls on, Whitworth was able to monitor her daughter’s account, and her daughter was not able to receive direct messages since chat settings were also turned off.
However, her daughter still had access to private servers through a user that sent her a friend request. Servers are different from chats and direct messages.
Whitworth says, “You can have chats off and parental settings on, but still your child could accept a friend request from someone, and then it can spiral down from there.”
@alliexwhitworth Replying to @yami #psa #roblox #parentsoftiktok #momsoftiktok #momshaming ♬ original sound – allie whitworth
An owner of the Bayside High School server commented under Whitworth’s video apologizing and addressing the accusations.
The commenter said, “We have fully deleted custom servers and are trying to figure out the best way for kids to be able to make their own without bending Roblox’s TOS and bypassing in order to create inappropriate servers…
“Every single day we deleted inappropriate servers from Bayside, but as a Roblox dev, I can tell you that Roblox’s moderation is one of the worst. It’s impossible to stop people from bypassing sadly. Right now custom servers have been fully disabled, and again we would like to apologize…
“Although Roblox advertises itself as a kid friendly website, we know that truly no website is safe. The internet sucks, I wish Roblox would do better when it comes to moderation.”
To confirm they are the owner of the Bayside High School server, the user added, “My username is LAgurlz, you can find the rank under our group.”
In Whitworth’s last update video, she brought the “Roblox receipts,” screenshots of the inappropriate messages sent to her daughter.
@alliexwhitworth #greenscreen #psa #roblox #momsoftiktok #parentsoftiktok ♬ original sound – allie whitworth
Before showing the messages, she reiterates how she understands how it could be her fault for “not monitoring and catching that quick enough,” but she made her original video to spread awareness to other parents.
On what she claims to be an all-ages access page, Whitworth shows a message from user @Lil_Timmi2018 that says, “This is the photo I busted 3 times to yesterday, best nut of my life on god.”
“This is your proof everyone that it’s out there,” she says, “this is your proof that it doesn’t matter what controls you have on.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Whitworth via TikTok direct message and Roblox via email.
Whitworth told the Daily Dot, “Roblox has yet to address or help on the matter. Quite disturbing.” She also says she reported the issue to Roblox through her daughter’s account, “and then have since had her and my kids accounts deleted.”
A Roblox spokesperson told the Daily Dot in a lengthy reply: “[W]e’re unable to investigate internally given we do not have the daughter’s username.”
But added, “We have a safety-first culture at Roblox and work tirelessly to maintain a platform that is safe, civil and welcoming for all.”
“We have a stringent safety system in place and strict restrictions around sharing personal information and features specifically aimed at protecting younger members of the Roblox community. These safety features include rigorous, industry-leading chat filters that prevent users from sharing or seeing personally identifiable information on Roblox, such as phone numbers or credit card information. You can learn more about our chat filters here.”
In response to Whitworth’s claims, Roblox addresses the age restrictions that parents can set to help them manage their child’s account.
“Parents can set restrictions based on the age recommendation assigned to individual experiences on Roblox, with three age categories to choose from – content recommended for ‘All Ages,’ content for users ‘9+,’ or content for users ’13+.'”
“It is important to note that some features are only accessible to older age groups. For example, chat with voice – that feature is only accessible for people 13 and older (for those in the US, you must be phone verified and it’s opt-in). Also, people 12 and younger have their posts and chats filtered both for inappropriate content and to prevent personal information from being posted. People 13 and older have the ability to say more words and phrases than younger players. You can learn more here.”
“In addition, parents have options to restrict or block chat entirely from their kid’s accounts, limit access to age-inappropriate games, and set limits on spend using our Account Restrictions settings. More tips and advice can be found on our For Parents pages.”
“Users age 12 and younger have their posts and chats filtered both for inappropriate content and to prevent personal information from being posted. Users age 13 and older have the ability to say more words and phrases than younger players. This filtering system covers all areas of communication on Roblox, public and private. See more here.”
“Our policies prohibit inappropriate content and behavior, including endangering or sexualizing children in any way, and we take swift action against anyone found to be acting in breach of our Community Standards.”
Whitworth adds that “from what messages I’ve received from other parents this seems to be a common occurrence.”