Roblox, THANK YOU for removing section eight from the Terms of Use. It would have wiped out thousands of groups on Roblox that serve the community as support and interest-based clubs based on religion, politics, LGBT, etc. The social dimension of Roblox is incredibly important.
My group, The Robloxian Christians, that has had immense success on Roblox, over the last seven years, cannot exist without protection built into the terms of service. The proposed article 8, would have directly taken a stab at my group and my good friend Alexâs group, True Colors. We ask that you please defend diverse groups on your platform and allow for us to continue to serve the community as we have for the last seven years.
We updated our policies to comply with EUâs GDPR regulations. Please take a look at the latest version of the policies and you will see that the section that referenced sensitive data has been removed.
Starting to feel less like a creative platform and more like a âdo exactly what we tell you or youâre going to get smackedâ type of platform⌠At least the bit about mental health and all that was removed, because that would have been a major problem for many people.
Echo, the fact is that Roblox is adopting GDPR for all players of all nations. Why should players in the United States have to suffer under the same dumb regulations at the EU? There are other solutions. Though more challenging, I believe that protecting users creative agency is more important.
Every (?) website is adopting GDPR. Itâs universal, not just Roblox that is updating their Privacy Policy in light of the GDPR. International websites are kind of obligated to respect the policies established by international organizations and/or nation unions. With that in mind, it goes into affect for all users. Iâve gotten messages like this from sites like Envato and Google where the policy affects all users. You canât select a specific group of your users and then have the rules apply to them; the rules must apply to everyone.
Iâve done a little researched on GDPR, on what specifically it regulates and what it is trying to accomplish.
First and foremost, I believe that in terms of the âsection eightâ that Roblox created earlier today which basically banned discussion of religion, political opinion, and sexual orientation, it is addressed in Recital 75 of the GDPR which you can read here.
What it is mainly talking about is evaluation and analysis of large amounts of user data on topics such as religion or political identity, which may lead to discrimination, identity theft, and loss of confidential personal data. I do not think that it at all goes to say that users should be limited in what they can post, rather it should limit what kinds of data developers and the Roblox site can collect in terms of demographics, forms, etc.
It outlines it here:
However in Recital 4, which reads somewhat like a preamble, (read it here), talks about how the regulations apply to the basic rights of mankind. Which I would assume would guarantee users, in this case players, the ability to practice their religion, culture, and linguistic diversity.
So Roblox, I hope that if you want to limit developers in terms of what data they can collect from their own intellectual property, that it will be tied directly to Recital 75, allowing developers as much freedom as possible. Please recognize that the GDPRâs purpose is not to limit consumers but to protect how their data is being used.
Also it would be very helpful if you could create a more definite list of what is considered personally identifiable information.
Unless for some silly reason we directly ask the user for personal information (which would beagainst the ToS I think) we shouldnât have any access to any personally identifiable information anyway, no?
So unless tracking the system language of individual players constitutes as collecting PII the developers shouldnât be affected by these changes, though if I am wrong about this feel free to correct me.
This has been considered sensitive information in many countries for years. One of the intentions is stopping organisations threatening to âoutâ people as a certain orientation or religion against their will. Mental and physical health have always had special data protection in the UK because they are highly personal and may not be something you want everyone to know.
