Roblox is stepping up its age verification system for users who want to message other players and implementing age-based chats so kids, teens and adults will only be able to communicate with people around their own age. The moves come as the popular gaming platform continues to face criticism and lawsuits over child safety and a growing number of states and countries are implementing age verification laws. Roblox said it will start enforcing age checks in Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands in the first week of December and the rest of the world in early January.
Sesame Workshop is working to regain control of Elmo's X account after a hacker posted racist and antisemitic messages. A spokesperson confirmed Monday that the account was compromised over the weekend. Instead of its usual uplifting posts, the account shared offensive content, including a reference to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. The posts were quickly deleted. Elmo's account, with 650,000 followers, has been a platform for mental health awareness. Last year, it gained attention when Elmo asked followers how they were doing, prompting responses from figures like then-President Joe Biden and Chance the Rapper.
The social media platform X says it will now formally allow people to show consensual adult content, as long as it is clearly labeled as such. The move makes official a policy already in place when the platform was known as Twitter, before billionaire Elon Musk purchased it in 2022. In a recent update on its website, the San Francisco-based company says users should be able to create, distribute, and consume material related to sexual themes as long as it is consensually produced and distributed. It adds that sexual expression, whether visual or written, can be a legitimate form of artistic expression.
