Latest / Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families / Roblox Exclusive with Matt Kaufman

Transcript

Roblox Exclusive with Matt Kaufman · Dr Justin Coulson's Happy Families

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: After months impression from the Esactor Commissioner, gaming platform, Roadblocks
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: is today announcing fresh changes to make it services safer
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: for kids. You an exclusive interview for podcasts in Australia
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: today on the Happy Families podcast. There are massive changes
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: coming to Roadblocks as they continue their work in telling
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: us that they're making the platform safe for children and
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: young people. I've been offered an exclusive opportunity to have
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: a conversation with Roadblocks's chief safety officer. His name is
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Matt Kaufman. Matt and I are going to be talking
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: next about the changes, what they mean for our kids,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: whether or not Roadblocks can be trusted with these changes,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: and how you can work with Roadblocks and your child
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: to give them a safe online experience assuming that you're
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: letting them use Roadblocks. Like I said, this is the
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: only podcast conversation where Matt is speaking to somebody in
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Australia about this. We've got the exclusive here at Happy
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Families and that discussion is next. Gooday, Welcome to the
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Happy Families podcast today, a podcast exclusive in Australia, a
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: conversation with Matt Kaufman. Matt Kaufman has served as the
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: chief safety officer at Roblock Since twenty twenty three. He
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: leads the company's safety and civility efforts across product and
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: operations and policy. First joined Roadblocks in twenty seventeen as
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: VP of Product and Operations and since then has continued
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: his work with Roblocks. Knows his stuff. Holds a degree
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: in Mechanical and Aeronautical engineering from University of California Davis
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: and master's in aerospace engineering from Virginia Tech. Before Roadblocks,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: he worked at a senior roles in places like crunch, Base,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Urdle and the online virtual world there dot Com. That's
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: enough of the bio stuff, Matt Well, I really appreciate
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: you joining me for this conversation. Let's just talk through
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: the changes right now. There's a whole suite of changes
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: that Roadblocks is going to bring in specifically in Australia
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: as part of the revamped emphasis in Australia on children
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: being safe online. What can you tell us about these changes?
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: So, the frust change we're making is that we are
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: introducing a Roadblocks Kids accounts, and we're calling Roadblocks Select accounts.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Roadblocks Kids accounts are for anybody who is under nine,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: and our Select accounts are for users who are between
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: nine and fifteen years old. And what these two accounts
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: types do is that it makes it easier for parents
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: to understand what their kids have access to on roadblocks.
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: So our existing standards for communication still apply. Kids under
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: nine can't communicate or car to anybody. As you get
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: older and you're in the nine plus, then you get
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: sort of added features to be able to talk to
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: your friends and others like that. And the other thing
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: is we're talking a lot more about the content you
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: have access to. So with Roadblocks Kids accounts and our
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Roadblock Select accounts, the content you have access to is
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: the content that we have the highest confidence in, content
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: that has the right age ratings for those age groups.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: And we are using age checks or a face to
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: age ustimation as one of the mechanisms for doing those
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: age checks to make sure that users get into the
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: rate accounts that are appropriate for them.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Matt, I'm going to link to the changes via the
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Roadblocks website in the show notes. Two of the biggest
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: challenges that I've been quite noisy about when it comes
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: to children and their safety on roadblocks, and there are
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: more than just these two, but two of the biggest
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: challenges have been my concern around the content that kids
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: can see and their access to people that they don't know.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: And when you were in Australia a couple of months
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: ago with David Bazooki, the CEO of Roadblocks, Yea, the
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: three of us got to sit down and have quite
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: a new depth conversation about what's going on there, which
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: was a real delight or problemised to be able to do.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: It sounds to me like these changes are directly oriented
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: towards those areas before we go into them in more depth. Though,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the biggest question that I have is around age checking.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Now you've just hinted that age checking is an integral
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: part of this. If kids are going to be age
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  Speaker 1: bracketed for you're nine and under, and then you're nine
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: to fifteen, and then fifteen and over, there has to
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: be an effective way to age check. The social media
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: companies are saying that it doesn't work, and I'm wondering
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: how confident you are in what Roadblocks is going to
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  Speaker 1: be doing for age checking. And a follow up to
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: that is what happens when it gets it wrong.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: I guess I want to start with saying that Roadblocks
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: and myself included we're optimistic that going through age checks
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: and using the camera in order to estimate your age.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: We're confident in that in being a highly accessible, global
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: solution that we can offer that's very easy for users.
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  Speaker 2: Is it perfect And the answer is no, But I
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: would argue that most things in life aren't perfect. Now
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: we know that for users who are under eighteen years,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: the age check process, using a face to age estimation
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  Speaker 2: gets people's ages right within about plus or minus one
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: point four years. And we know that from data. But
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  Speaker 2: there's really two parts of age checking. There's part one
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: is determining whether the person on the other side of
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: the camera is a real person, whether like they're not
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: just somebody holding up their phone of their favorite celebrity
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  Speaker 2: or showing a cartoon character, but is it a real person?
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  Speaker 2: And then the second part of age check is taking
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: a face and converting it to an age. The second
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  Speaker 2: part there's a lot of data we you know, scientific
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  Speaker 2: data that shows under eighteen plus or minds one point
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: four years. We're confident in that the checking to see
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: if you're a real person is something that companies have
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  Speaker 2: to devote a lot of energy to do. Roadblocks have
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  Speaker 2: taken the approach that we care deeply that the person
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  Speaker 2: on the other end of the camera is real and
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  Speaker 2: we don't want people faking it, so we implement all
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: kinds of checks to make sure you're a real person.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: I think what makes the age check process infusing out
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: there for parents is that there are lots of companies
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  Speaker 2: doing this, lots of products and services doing it, but
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  Speaker 2: not everybody takets that first step of making sure it's
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: a real person. Not everybody goes to the links that
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: say roadblocks does. Despite issues, it is categorically more effective
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: than simply asking somebody how old they are.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: Matt, I hear what you're saying, and I hope that
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: you're right. Other than the photo, how do you know
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: that the ten year old who's saying that they're ten
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: is actually ten, and it's not a fifty year old
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: who is pretending to be ten and holding up a
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: photo of a child or bringing in their own child
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: and getting them to smile for the camera. What do
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: you have beyond the facial.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Recognition, the bringing in the photo thing, Because I think
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: this comes up a lot. I mean, it's sensational on
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: social media. Look, I held up a picture of my
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: dog and it said that I'm twenty five. But that's
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: not how it works, and that's not how roadblocks works.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: So how do we tell The first thing is when
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: we take the picture of you and it's asking you
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: to move your head around, what people don't really realize
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: is what is actually doing is looking to see if
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: you have an ear. Because if you take a profile picture,
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: like I take your picture right now, Justin, and I
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: get a snapshot of it, and I'm I'm going to
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: be like, hey, I'm a kid, I'm going to go
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: use Justin's picture to like claim that I'm, you know,
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: you look older than twenty five. That I'm not going
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: to guess how old. I'm going to claim that I'm,
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: you know, an adult. I can't see your ears because
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: in the profile I can't see it. But when these
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: age check processes run and it's asking you to move
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: your head and you're following instructions, it's looking for these
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: basic signs of are you real person? And it you know,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: there's lots of stuff that goes into that. The other
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: thing is, let's say that you know you're a kid
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: and you get your parent to do it on your behalf.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: And that was actually something that we saw a lot of.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: To be honest with you, is that I think kids
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: are so accustomed to getting an ask on their phone
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: to like verify some, verify this, verify that, and read
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: to this, rea to that. There are a lot of
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: kids hand the phone to their parents and say, hey,
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: do this for me, And I can't blame them. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: I think we've trained kids that this is what you
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  Speaker 2: should do, ask your parent. But the parent gets the phone,
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: they're taking care of lots of other things at the
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: same time. And we saw a lot of cases where
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: the parent are like, oh, wants to take a picture.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Here we go. It's just me and the parent didn't
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: realize they were setting the age for their kid. They
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: just didn't know. So we have ways of fixing that.
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  Speaker 2: Parents can can create a verified parent account and they
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: can adjust the age of their kids. We allow parents
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: and kids to reset the process and start it over
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  Speaker 2: again if they screwed up. We allow you to use
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: a photo ID if you want so. We have these
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: other mechanisms in there to correct it. Now. Not only
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: do we have that, but we also look at your
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: user behavior after you've gone through the age process, and
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: if we notice, like your behavior like what you're playing,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: if you're talking to people, how you're talking to them,
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  Speaker 2: things like that. If we notice that that looks indifferent
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: than what you age checked as well, asked you to
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: do the process again. So these are never like one
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: and done things, and that is how we think about
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: the age check crosses.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Matt Coffin has served as the Chief Safety Officer at
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Roblock since twenty twenty three. He leads the company's safety
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: and civility efforts across product and operations and policy. Let's
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: talk about content classification. With the content classification, I presume
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: it's going to be done by technology by AI a
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: lot more than it's going to be done by people.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Will people be involved in both? And the reason that
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: I'm asking this is I'm sure that the word Hindenburg
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: is not one that's smiled on very much at Roadblocks
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: at the moment, but for people who missed it. A
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: couple of years ago, a group called Hindenburg Research published
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: a contested but scathing report on damaging allegations against Roadblocks.
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: When you talk about a platform with and eighty million
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: billly active users in that age group, there will be
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: concerns around child safety. I mean the content that they're consuming,
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: how much time they're spending, what kind of communities are
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: thriving on that platform. And I think that's what Hindenburg
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: is bringing into focus, that there isn't enough content safety.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: And something that really stood out to me in the
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Hindenburg research report showed that when they set up a
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: test account registers an eight year old, they were able
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: to access groups that were openly trading child sex abuse
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: materials simply by searching the word adult. So, in terms
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: of this best in the world moderation, obviously with the
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: age checking that's occurring now, there's still going to be
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: content that needs to be placed into the appropriate age group.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: How is the content classification going to be done?
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, we do content clarification. There's actually two parts of it.
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  Speaker 2: One there is moderation to say does the content meet
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: our standards. I mean, as somebody is doing something truly
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: in a faery, as they're you know, they're celebrating you know, terrorism,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: or you know, they're doing anything that would endanger a child,
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: that is not allowed on our platform. It is against
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: our policies. Even if one person sees it or five
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: or ten or you know, out of you know, one
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: hundred plus million people who are on roadblocks every day.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: It doesn't matter, it is not okay. So I just
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: want to start with that. Now. When we look at content,
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: first we decide is it acceptable on our platform or not?
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: And the second thing we decide is what are the
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: ratings associated with the content. We are working with ACB,
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: the Ratings Board in Australia, to apply their ratings to
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: our content, and we're going to be doing that in
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: the future. So there's two parts of it. We use
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: both humans looking at content, and we also use machines,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: and so it's really it's a marriage of the two.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: I don't think that you know entirely what AI are
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: entirely human. That is not the answer. The answer is
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: you have to use both. So I do want to
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: talk about the content that is accessible to our younger users,
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: our users who are under sixteen, or users who have
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: not gone through the age check process. If you choose
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: not to go through the age check process, no problem,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: You'll just not have access to any content that it
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: would you know, our wider set of content, you'll be
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: limited to what our under sixteens have access to. One
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: of the things that we're doing is part of the
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: rollout of roadblocks kids and select is we're looking at
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: we're only making the content which we have the highest
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: confidence in available to our younger users. And so what
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: does that mean? The way I would describe it is,
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: let's imagine you buy a new house or you rent
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: a new apartment or condo. When you walk through it
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: right before you sign your name on it, you can
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: walk through and be like, hey, everything looks great. But
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: after you've lived in it for a little bit, you're like, wow,
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: you know that door doesn't actually shut all the way
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: and wow, like hot water it doesn't come out of
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: that faucet over there. It's not something you would have
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: seen when you walk through that house. And I think
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: what we're saying for our content where a large user
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: generated content platform is we want to make sure that
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: the content that we have available to our youngest users
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: has been sort of lived in for a while, that
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: it's been on the platform for a while, that we
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: know who the developer is, that it wasn't somebody who
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: just popped up yesterday and created content. We want to
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: have a high degree of confidence in who the developer is,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: whether the content has been viewed by other people, adults,
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: older users, and whether people have flagged any issues, and
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: that all of our safety moderation systems, whether they're human
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: or automated, have had time to really look at that content.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: So with the launch of Roadblocks Kids and Roadblocks Select accounts,
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: we're saying only the content that has gone through all
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: of these additional checks will be available to our younger users.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: And I think that this is an important step for
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Roadblocks because I think people have to, you know, remember,
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: and we need to recognize that we are a user
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: generated content platform. It's what makes Roadblocks amazing. The majority
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: of our top content was made by kids who started
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: playing on Roadblocks when they were much younger, and we
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: want to keep that ethos of a user generated content
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: platform where people are learning STEM skills and creating and
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: sharing with their friends. We want to maintain that while
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: also making sure that the content that's available to our
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: youngest users has passed through a bunch of safety checks
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: to make sure that we really understand the ratings of
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: it and that it does adhere to our content policies.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Matt, My last question around the changes relates to parental controls.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Last time all I signed up for an account on
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: roadblocks as a very very young person the parental controls
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: that were loose. Has anything changed there?
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean I would encourage you to sign up
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: as a parent now to see all of the stuff
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: that we've added over the last year or so, and
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: we continue to add things. Our goal is to make
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: the pronal controls as easy as possible for parents to use.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: One thing I would note is that when we think
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: about parental controls, we obviously want to make it easy
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: for parents to tune who their kids are able to
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: talk to or not able to talk to it all,
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: but obviously our youngest users can't talk to anybody. We
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: want to make it easy for parents to decide what
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: content their kids have access to. Whether there's a piece
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: of content that maybe we didn't think it was appropriate
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: but the parents think it is, or vice versa, where
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: the parents are like, hey, I just disagree with this
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: type of content, I don't want my kid to have
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: access to it, and I want to turn that off. We
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: want to make that really easy, I would say, though,
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: and we invest a lot in this. The most important
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: thing for parents when it comes to parental controls is
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: to be engaged with their kid and just talk to
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: them about what they're doing. The most important parental control
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: doesn't require you to sign up or do anything. It's
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: just talking to your kid. It's talking to your kid
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: about like what games are you playing, who are you
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: playing those games with? Like what do you like about it?
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: Like what was exciting? What was something that you know
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: maybe you didn't like, and really having that conversation with kids.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: And so when I think about where we're going with
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: paranal controls in the future, we're going to try and
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: do more to foster that conversation between parents and their
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: kids about what they're doing on roadblocks.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: If I were to summarize everything that I think that
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: I've heard you say for parents who are saying, all right,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: there's been a lot of information, I really just want
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: to get my head around exactly what this means. I'm
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: going to do my best to do a quick summary,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong. So the first thing is
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: that there's now going to be three different types of
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: account rather than essentially what has been a singular roadblocks account.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: There's going to be roadblocks kids for children age let's
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: say five to eight. Then there's going to be roadblocks
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: select which will be for nine to fifteen year olds,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: and then there'll be the regular roadblocks account for children
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: sixteen and over age checking is going to happen primarily
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: using technology and verifying that a person is a real person.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: One thing that has been threaded through this conversation, and
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's a slight contrast to the discussion
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: we had a couple of months ago when I met
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: you in the brisb And Hotel with David Buzuki was
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: and I might not be saying this word perfect, but
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: David said something along the lines of, we want roadblocks
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: to be a platform that parents can leave their kids
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: with without having to worry about what they're doing. We
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: want roadblocks to be safe for kids without parents having
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: to be over their shoulder. But you've said consistently throughout
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: this conversation, parents need to be involved. Parents actually need
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: to know what's going on. So parents need to make
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: sure that it's not their face that's signing their child
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: into roadblocks. Like my daughter constantly grabs the iPhone, sticks
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: it in front of her mum's face, my wife's face,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, she's into whatever she wanted
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: to be using. And a lot of parents is just like, yeah, sure,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: I'll look at the camera. Okay, done, off, you go
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: give me five minutes. I need some space. So we've
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: got three accounts for the Roadblocks Kids. What you're saying
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: is that the content rating is highly vetted both by
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: real people but also by technology to make sure that
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: the quality of the content is appropriate for young children
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: five to eight. You're saying that chat is off, that's
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: the default option. But from what I understand, you're also
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: indicating that with parent intervention, parents can turn chat on
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: so that kids can talk to selected people. Have I
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: got that right?
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Parents will be able to turn chat on so that,
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: you know, the siblings can talk to each other, but
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: parents would have to approve that. In Roadblocks Kids and
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Roadblocks select, as you get older, ye, the thing, yeah,
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: as you get older, like if you're thirteen, you'll you know,
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: you'll be able to chat with others of your similar
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: age and everything is filtered and we don't allow sharing
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: of images or video or PII and all of that stuff.
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: But Roadblocks Select it starts introducing more features as users
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: get older. We want roadblocks to be safe. It's very
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: important that parents have trust that the roadblocks is doing
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: what we can and whenever we can to keep kids safe,
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: that is, you know, our number one priority. But like
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: I said, we also think it's important that we create
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: a space where kids and parents can have a conversation
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: about what they're doing online. And I don't think that's
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: just about roadblocks. I mean, I would suspect that that's given.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're obviously the expert here, and we would
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: certainly defer to you on this, But I would think
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: that the advice to parents that you should be taken
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: to your kids about what they're doing online and have
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: a conversation about who they're hanging out with and other
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: stuff like that applies broadley and not just a roadblocks.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: It doesn't really matter what platform you're on. If you're
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: not involved in your children's lives, as specifically their online life,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: they can be will be confronted by all kinds, all
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: manner of challenges. The real secret to success here is
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: less about the platform and more about parential involvement. However,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: my pushback is parents shouldn't have to be constantly involved.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: The platforms have a responsibility. Roadblocks has undeniably broken trust
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: over the years with parents, as children have been exposed
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: to and damaged by content that's been there. These changes, Matt,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: are oriented towards repairing that trust. I've not been a
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: friend of Roadblocks sometime because of the damage that's occurred.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: I can't help myself. Even though I'm not a big
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: believer in big tech and the better angels of their nature.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: A conversation like this tells me that Roadblocks is in
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Wood right now, committed to making changes, and I guess
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: as this rolls out, we'll have to see how that
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: plays out.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: Indeed, well we think about creating safety on roadblocks, the
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: first thing we ask ourselves is would this be something
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: that we would expect that would be okay for our
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: kids if we weren't there. We want to make sure
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: that we're making decisions that work not just for our
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: own kids, that work for the Globe and work for
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: kids in Australia and you're kids, Matt.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Really appreciate your time, Really appreciate you sharing what you've shared,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: and hopefully this leads to some continued improvement so that
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: our parents can feel good about their kids being online.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for chatting with me today.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Thank you justin I appreciate your time.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Matt, Kaufman has served as the chief safety officer at
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Roadblocks since twenty twenty three. Really appreciate MAT's sincerity and
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: the things that is shared in today's conversation. Hopefully it's
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: been helpful for you as we've discussed the changes that
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: are landing at roblocks literally as we speak, roadblocks Kids
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: for five to eight year olds, roadblocks select for kids
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: age nine to fifteen, and then regular roadblocks accounts for
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: sixteen and overs. We will link to some details about
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: those changes in the show notes, as well as some
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: other info about roblocks that we hope will be useful
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: as you talk to the kids about how all this
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: works out. The Happy Families podcast is produced by Justin
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Ruland from Bridge Media. Nim Hammond's provides our admin and
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: other support, and for more information and make your family happier,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: please visit us at Happyfamilies dot com dot a u