Australia Calls Out Gaming Platforms for Child Safety Shortcomings
Australia’s online safety regulator has identified serious gaps in how the world’s most popular gaming services protect children. The eSafety Commissioner released a report after analysing platform‑wide safety protocols from October 2025 to March 2026 that shows nine out of ten Australian children aged 8 to 17 are active online gamers.
The review highlighted uneven safety measures across Valve’s Steam and Steam Chat, Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft. Critics say these gaps expose children to predatory adults, sexual exploitation and extremist content, and that child‑safe features are often left to user self‑reporting.
- Valve does not employ widely used automated detection tools, and its chat moderation focuses mainly on scam alerts.
- Roblox and Valve rely solely on internally trained language models that are not routinely updated.
- Minecraft and Fortnite rely on users to declare their age, allowing adults to bypass higher‑risk communication features.
- Only Roblox and Mojang (Minecraft’s developer) actively share expertise on combating sexual exploitation and violent extremism; Valve and Epic Games have been less engaged.
The commission urged the platforms to raise age‑verification standards, adopt proactive detection of harmful content and cooperate with global child‑protection initiatives. Its findings followed Australia’s 2025 social‑media ban for under‑16s and recent moves to give users control over algorithmic recommendations.
Valve, Fortnite, Roblox and Microsoft have yet to respond. The report calls on the industry to “lift their game” to safeguard the next generation of online users.
