If you live in the Middle East and tried to hop on Roblox today, you might have noticed something strange like the chat box is gone. Messages saying “Chat is restricted in your region” started popping up, and players quickly took to social media to vent their frustration.
Roblox has now confirmed that communication features in certain Middle Eastern countries are disabled, though they didn’t provide a clear reason why. The timing is interesting though, because alongside this change, Roblox announced a major push to expand age estimation across the entire platform by the end of the year.
Here’s what Roblox says they’re working on:
- Facial age estimation and ID verification: Instead of just trusting the birthday you type when signing up, Roblox will roll out tech that uses government IDs and even face scans to verify age.
- Parental consent: Parents of younger players will need to give verified permission for certain features.
- Adult-to-minor limits: New systems will restrict communication between adults and minors unless they already know each other in real life.
The company is framing this as a way to give players “developmentally appropriate” features while setting a new safety standard for the entire gaming and social media industry. In other words, they want to be ahead of the curve, whether or not governments pass stricter age verification laws down the line.
Disabling chat in Middle Eastern countries could be Roblox testing out how these new restrictions will work before rolling them out globally. Or it could be tied to local regulations in those regions, where online communication tools are often heavily restricted. Roblox hasn’t said much beyond confirming that the restriction exists, which only fuels speculation.
This feels like a huge shift. On one hand, I get it, Roblox has been under constant pressure to keep kids safe, and chat is the number one place where things can go wrong. On the other hand, wiping out communication for an entire region is drastic, and it risks making Roblox feel less like a social platform and more like a locked-down playground.
The facial age estimation part is also a double-edged sword. Some people will welcome it, but others will see it as invasive. Holding your phone up to prove you’re old enough just to type “hi” in chat sounds weird now, but maybe that’s the future of online spaces.