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Roblox hides ads from under-13s

Roblox hides ads from under-13s

Games platform Roblox will no longer show adverts to kids under the age of 13.

That's according to the company's updated Advertising Standards policy on its website, in which it says that it will not be showing adverts to under 13s. This follows a complaint to the United States' FTC filed by non-profit Truth in Advertising (TINA) in April 2022, in which it claimed that adverts were being served to "more than 25 million children and adolescents."

The organisation filed a follow-up with the FTC in October 2022, saying that Roblox had still not changed its policies.

Other changes to Roblox's Advertising Standards include marketing that solicits charitable donations, promotion for multi-level marketing companies, financial services, crypto and NFTs, political or religious content, online dating services, funeral services and martial arts training.

Roblox has also introduced guidance for what it will accept as an ad and what it will not.

"For starters, Roblox’s new landscape means that experiences like the wildly popular Adopt Me! game, which is geared toward and accessible to young kids and has been visited more than 32 billion times, won’t be able to run promotional experiences like it has in the past," TINA wrote.

"The question now is whether Roblox – which is doubling down on its commitment to suspend developers’ experiences and/or accounts if they violate any of the platform’s advertising standards – will do anything about it. Or whether it will continue to roll the dice."


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PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.