Chat filter

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Roblox has a text filter that prohibits players from seeing or sending potentially offensive terms (including profanity) and restricts personally identifiable information, which replaces the now-discontinued Safe Chat that was previously used to prevent young players from sending messages that were not pre-programmed. Currently, the censored text is replaced with hashes (#). For example, "World Trade Center" is replaced by "##### ##### ######" or "YouTube" is replaced by "#######" when filtered. The old system was replacing the entire message with [ Content Deleted ] instead.

Historically, Roblox used a hidden word blacklist that came bundled with the Roblox Player, stored in the file diogenes.fnt. Speaking any word contained in that list would usually render an instant ban from the website. The player would then be disconnected from whatever game they're playing. Repeated infractions using the chatbox would usually render a termination. Only 13+ accounts could chat or post on the website (forums, comments, etc.), as well as being able to chat freely in-game. Guests were restricted to the Safe Chat, as well as <13 (under 13 (unless disabled in the account's respective Parent account).^{⁠[citation needed]}

Today, the text filter is provided by the CommunitySift service. Since CommunitySift uses multiple rules and text classification techniques to filter phrases, the lists in this article are not representative of the entire range of words that are filtered. The system is a controlled neural network, which is constantly studying what users say so it can learn and evolve with the language as new bypasses and idioms are created. Errors happen frequently, but their occurrence of such has diminished over time.^{⁠[citation needed]}

Alongside filtering potential profanity from the chats, the filter also attempts to censor private information such as ages, telephone numbers, and surnames, so that the website can continue to be COPPA-compliant by protecting users from unknowingly sharing their personally identifiable information.^{⁠[citation needed]}

Sometime in 2021, a new feature was added to privacy settings called "Chat Filtering Level". This determines how restricted the chat filter becomes. There are two modes of filtering, "maximum filtering" and "13+ filtering", which determine how restricted the chat filter becomes.^{⁠[citation needed]}

In Restricted experiences, the text filter is even more relaxed if strong language is present. This does not mean that the filter is disabled in its entirety, though, as the most offensive words, such as the N-word, still get filtered.^{⁠[citation needed]}

Criticism

False positives

The filtering system, at times, may detect false positives in sentences that could be considered otherwise acceptable. Known commonly as the Scunthorpe problem, words used in common sentences, such as "can't", "hi", "ok", sometimes get picked up by the filter and get censored. In random cases, even specific things such as capital letters, numbers, and irrelevant and appropriate messages can be censored at random. The number of hits has reduced in the last years, as the filter evolved to detect what is a normal conversation and what is not, based on feedback given by Roblox Staff and by common users, although false positives still happen frequently. Those are most noticeable when searching through the marketplace or when looking for a username.^{⁠[citation needed]}

Filtering numbers

In February 2017, <13 accounts had all forms of numbers blacklisted from being seen and sent permanently for security reasons - namely, to avoid underage users sending messages with personally identifiable information such as age, addresses, and telephone numbers. This has caused quite a commotion in the Roblox community, and criticism flew around from all parts. In February 2021, the safe chat was updated with this feature being slightly removed, allowing <13 to be able to say numbers, but excessive use would still be filtered.

Controversies about LGBTQ+

For some time, LGBTQ+ terms such as "gay", "homosexual", "lesbian", "bisexual", "transgender", and the like were temporarily blacklisted. This severely upset many users who identified with them. This has since been changed, and now the filter only blocks these words when used in negative connotations. Since July 1, 2021, there has been a massive increase in reports of users being banned for up to a week for saying LGBTQ+ terms, some of the most common being "gay". This has been stated by Roblox as the filter ignoring context, but there has been evidence of this not being the case.^{⁠[citation needed]}

Censoring of links

Many links, like discord.gg invites, roblox.com links, and other links, are often filtered. The reason this censor is here is to stop advertising, malicious links, scams, or gore. Several users have gotten around this by giving out part of the link instead of the whole link. For example, instead of saying "join https://discord.gg/Ap3qfEvBzj", they instead say "join Ap3qfEvBzj", or something similar. However, these suspicious hashes can sometimes be filtered.^{⁠[citation needed]}

Unable to change date of birth (for people who are 13+)

There have been some users above the age of 13 on Roblox with Privacy Mode on due to the user's account birthday being under the age of 13. Because of this, some people would ask Roblox Support for help to change their birthdate (due to safe chat getting in their way) to their real one (13+), but to no avail. Roblox has claimed that it could not change birthdays due to COPPA regulations. Many people have criticized Roblox for not being able to help with this age-related issue, and getting no help from Roblox Support whatsoever. Roblox may enable to change their birth dates for users <13, which may be in breach of the federal COPPA Act, which regulates the ability of children to lie about their ages. This can now be changed, but date of birth changes for users under 13 must be approved by a parent who has their age verified.^{⁠[citation needed]}

17+ False Censorship/Bans

In 17+ experiences where swearing is allowed without hateful or derogatory context, players will be censored or even banned for even a single swear word. Players using voice chat may even get automatically muted by the system, even if they have never sworn, with many players finding it redundant for said games to censor even appropriate messages, enforcing standard content filters even if the experience is specifically labeled as an exception, including false positives, as stated earlier.^{⁠[citation needed]}