We Need an Underage (13) User Detection Bot

Forum Help Forum Features
#86

Ah I see.
Reading through all the posts, and thinking about the goal, preventing underage users from participating on the forums, it this seems like it may be a tough thing to accomplish, especially with the chance of an at-age user copying and pasting a link that an under-age user posted.

Lest, there’s something like a hidden code that’s copied over with the link, possibly some HTML code implemented into all roblox links, of course being the same in all links so that the website backtracking (like web.archive.org) can still be used, but it would start up a little counter thing that would track how many times the link was copied and whether the user that copied it’s account was of the correct age. It would also tell if the user that posted the link was the original copier (the one that took it form the site) , and if the original copier originally copied a “web.” link, then it would notify something, sending that data to someone for review, to possibly understand the context of why it was posted as a “web” link, incase the user actually is of the correct age.
The code for reading the data and notifying the data to something could all be stored on the actual webpage instead of in the small html code, or whatever is chosen to be used for the storing of the small amounts of info.
Another thing that could be done, in order to prevent users from breaching this by use of browser extensions or software, is make so it can never be turned off, unless it’s actually deleted from the roblox servers. Now software could be coded to create a sort of “false state” where the site believes the code has been deleted. Unfortunately there’s always a way people can work around a system, but it is possible to create a line of code, possibly a very long one, that could mix up the code in some way, but the servers or something can still somehow read it, but developers trying to code their way somehow around it wouldn’t be able to decypher it, like what was done with radio signals a while ago by the U.S.A. .
The mixing up of the code and the html code would definitely be the most challenging things from what I described above, the code mixing most definitely being the greatest challenge.

In conclusion, internal server code mixed with external server code could possibly solve the problem of the under-age usage on the forums.

P.s.

If a user does get kicked from the DevForum for being underage, I’d like it to be where the posts they may have made are still on the forums, however they are not able like, comment, respond, edit, or bookmark them. Perhaps not even view the posts if they were in non-public threads. But their posts would still be there for if they ever choose to come back to the forums once they’re old enough, and if anyone wants to use the information they provided, (if they made a really good descriptive helpful post perhaps) .

#87

I believe what you are saying is beyond the scope of this feature request, nor do I believe it is possible to embed code within links, nor have I seen this happen. The majority of the Roblox playerbase is <13, and this is the developer forum, a much smaller community, therefore making this even more out of scope.

Underage users get their account suspended, so their content is still there, and as suspensions prevent logins, they won’t be able to do anything other than view the site logged out.

1 Like
#88

I see what you mean.

When I mentioned the HTML code in the links, I was thinking back to when the “Hi I’d like to put your avatar in my game!” scams were a lot more common/ talked about. Where the scammer would send a link to a youtube video, along with a little more text than what I quoted, and instruct the user being scammed to copy and paste a link from the video description, but to remove a symbol at the end of it before pressing enter. This was a scam that allowed people to I believe to have access to the cache data, and or the saved items like passwords that were in that browser. They couldn’t go any further than the online browser and it’s data, but they could still see and use a lot of information.

But yeah, I agree that what I was talking about was a bit out of scope for the feature request.

#89

Yes, I agree.

A simple search in the search bar with “web.roblox.com” will result in many posts popping up with these links.

#90

The moment any countermeasure against web.roblox links is put in place, every kid on Roblox will know about it and will adjust their links. They do it for the filter, they’ll learn to do it here. It’s pointless to implement this.

1 Like
#92

You can say the same for Discord server invites, people can just say hey join my server: ABCDEFGH without the discord,gg or they can just edit in the link, since discourse’s filter is kinda weak in these cases.

Kids do not know any better, this can be seen by the sheer amount of web links. It would have to get out there that countermeasures are in place against web links, but no one is going to announce that there is a countermeasure, that would be asinine. And it would happen to individuals, not necessarily groups of people, but maybe I missed/misunderstood something, in that case let me know.

All that is needed is that it goes through once, and they are likely to not post ever again because they got caught.

1 Like
#93

You’re right some kids will change it. But the point is to set out and make a system that stops those who use it before they learn of the web system. We see people only the daily use web so there is activity. Almost as if saying you won’t put a net in water with big fish while you’re starving because they’re too big to catch…

It’s just to stop those who do use it and incept before they learn. Not to mention this is already a system in a way, its just manually reported.

#94

Then this thread is mistitled, its not for “we” as in the community. Complying with COPPA is something Roblox has to deal with reliably and efficiently, efficiently being the keyword. Additionally, access to “unfiltered content” doesn’t require you to post for the most part, so none of this sounds very beneficial to the community at large; which is what I’m really interested in.

#95

I think maybe like a proof of some sort like maybe a picture of your face and If Roblox finds your face not on the web then you get access to over 13+ but if the user claims to be over 13 possibly a 7 day ban or possibly if done in the past a Permanent ban.

#96

This would be a massive invasion of privacy; to prove you’re over 13 you should not have to submit a picture of your face. Also it doesn’t make much sense having Roblox search for everybody’s face on the internet; that would cost a huge amount of time, not to mention the amount of resources which would be required to pull that off - it would be unnecessary and very ineffective.

I assume you mean ‘if they find your face on the web’.

Again, this would be extremely invasive. Personally my face is nowhere on the internet (not that I know of, anyway), so for that reason I would be declared under 13. It’s one thing to be required to trust Roblox to store a picture of your face appropriately, but to need to upload it elsewhere (and trust the place in which you’ve shared the photo) on the Internet is very intrusive on peoples’ privacy.

Having Roblox ‘search the web’ for your face would result in a ridiculously long search; they would need to check billions of images per person - this would be impossible, so none of this would be a feasible solution.

2 Likes
#97

Obviously an under 13 age detector would be plainly bad. Bypassable, easily.

Perhaps add an under 13 age detector and an account age restriction?

  1. Users under 13 will be restricted from joining the forum, which overall reduces spam.
  2. All users who ARE 13 or older will be required to have a certain account age. This overall reduces new accounts from joining and causing havoc on the forums.
#98

<13 users are already restricted from joining the forum.

So while yes, it can be bypassed, kids don’t know any better, and I am able to see a ton of web.roblox links, if you search “web.roblox.com” on the forum.

3 Likes
#99

Never realized how many under 13 users there were…
But maybe for example we could have anyone trying to make an account on the devforum copy and paste the Roblox link somewhere and see if it starts with ‘www’ or ‘web’?

#100

Yep. I was surprised too when I saw a 10 year old posting in #collaboration. She actually set her account age higher since she could message me, but in her roblox profile she stated clearly that she was 10 years old. I think that there should be some conformation when you join the forum saying “by entering you confirm that you are 13 or older” so that even the bypassed age people will know that they are not welcome.

2 Likes
#101

Users under 13 should be allowed on Roblox but should have limited features for example, for them not to be able to see numbers and everything inappropriate, it is a good idea to allow them to chat to their friends but making sure they are safe and that if they for example say something similar to their address, Roblox warns them.

#102

This is about the DevForum, and besides <13 users are already allowed on Roblox.

2 Likes
#103

Discord server links are allowed on the DevForum anyway. (but the links go through Discource post approval)

#104

Yep! And the point is that you can omit the first half of the link to bypass the post approval, since only the second half (invite code) is needed.

#105

Yes, but the fact is that Discource probably didn’t try to add advanced security (since the links seem to always get past post approval anyway) + Discource needs to cater for all types of forums, including forums set up to share game codes (that in some cases look like Discord invite codes). Discource likely just either weren’t capable of doing this or decided not to as it could cause false positives.

#106

This is not really related to the topic, the topic is about the forum putting more effort into detecting <13 users. I proposed redirecting web.roblox links to moderation, just like how they do with raw discord server links. Since it would only be put under review, there is no harm in this being implemented.