Australia flags child‑safety shortfalls on popular gaming platforms
Australia’s online‑safety regulator has warned that leading gaming services do not offer enough protection to minors.
A recent review shows that Steam, Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft deploy very different approaches to safeguarding children, leaving them vulnerable to predators and extremist content.
Valve, which owns Steam, was the only platform that did not use a widely adopted tool for detecting harmful material, and it also does not flag child‑sexual‑exploitation or violent content in chat. Instead its system focuses mainly on scam detection.
Roblox faces similar issues, relying on internal data to train language‑filter models and failing to update its algorithms regularly. Neither Roblox nor Valve offered proactive tools to spot child abuse or violent behaviour in real‑time interactions.
Minecraft caters to a broader age range by letting users declare their age, which can result in adults gaining access to higher‑risk communication features. Roblox has since upgraded its age‑checks, and Steam has added credit‑card verification for age verification.
The regulator also highlighted uneven sharing of data and cooperation across the industry – with companies such as Mojang Studios and Roblox contributing to global safety programmes, yet Valve stayed out. Epic Games, the maker of Fortnite, was also criticised for failing to forward breach details to industry partners.
A four‑million‑a‑year regulator examined how these platforms protected children between October 2025 and March 2026. It called on each platform to “lift its game” and provide stronger safeguards against sexual exploitation and extremist content.
Australia has repeatedly taken a market‑leading stance on online safety, enacting a ban on social media for users under 16 and demanding that tech giants give users an opt‑out from algorithmic curation.
The gaming giants have been asked for comment.
