Discord And Roblox Join Other Tech Giants In Funding "ROOST," Initiative Will Provide Free, Open-Source Online Child Safety Tools

It's been no secret that Roblox has been under the microscope for years now with allegations of being lackadaisical when it comes to the online safety of minors. While the company continues to deny those accusations and implement new features to protect minors, 2023 criticisms have continued to mount throughout 2024. Now the gaming-creation platform is part of a pool of tech giants combining funds to establish ROOST, the Robust Open Online Safety Tools initiative.

At the French AI Action Summit, ROOST was unveiled thanks to $27 million over the last 4 years. The initiative's purpose is to create " free, open-source safety tools to public and private organizations of all sizes across the globe." The tools claim to be easy-to-use when it comes to detecting, reviewing, and reporting child sexual abuse materials and uses large language models to enable the platform. The aim is to allow companies to rely on ROOST rather than to have to "reinvent the wheel" according to a PRNewswire release.

The group hopes to expand the feature set and capabilities available, while providing them free of charge to as many organizations as possible.

Other investors include Eric Schmidt, Discord, OpenAI, Google, Roblox, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, AI Collaborative, Patrick J. McGovern Foundation and Project Liberty Institute.

While the news is certainly good PR for companies like Roblox, it comes on the heels of staggering numbers of active minor players and months of accusations coming and going regarding Roblox's existing security for said minors. Roblox's weaker recent quarter financial results showed the company's back and forth swings in revenue and player engagement continue despite being one of the largest gaming platforms in the world.

Stocks took a dive just this past week when forecasted 2025 revenue fell slightly short of what investors expected.