An Australian eSafety Commission report finds significant gaps in child safety protections on Steam, Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite, with inconsistent approaches to detecting and removing harmful content for 8- to 17-year-olds who make up a large portion of online gamers.

The report criticizes four major platforms for not adequately shielding children from harmful content and predators, despite April notices outlining Basic Online Safety Expectations.

Roblox emphasizes its strong child-safety posture, citing a large Trust & Safety team, advanced detection technology, and mandatory age checks for chat access.

Roblox tightened age verification by December 2025 after engagement with the eSafety agency under Australia’s Online Safety Act, while Steam has not expanded age verification beyond credit-card checks.

The report flags Roblox and Valve’s Steam/Steam Chat for relying on self-declared ages and for using outdated language-detection models that aren’t regularly retrained or proactive in harm detection.

The overarching call is for platforms to improve detection, prevention, and response mechanisms, including monitoring re-registrations of banned users and off-platform activity.

March age-assurance requirements require platforms to verify users’ ages to keep children away from dangerous content, including material related to sexual harm or self-harm.

Australian online-safety reforms are underway, including potential algorithmic-feed opt-outs; Roblox has already restricted certain features for under-18 Australians and maintains stricter access controls.

Minecraft, Roblox, and Fortnite use multiple indicators to detect re-registrations after bans, while Steam has minimal safeguards against re-registrations.

Minecraft and Fortnite offer child accounts but largely rely on self-declared ages, allowing higher-risk features for those claiming to be 18 or older; Steam has begun enforcing age checks via credit cards, with Roblox tightening checks since last December.

Epic Games and Mojang largely rely on self-declared ages, permitting high-risk features like all-ages chatrooms for users claiming to be adults, and Roblox is noted for stronger off-platform grooming monitoring.

Minecraft and Fortnite permit higher-risk features when users claim to be over 18, while Roblox maintains stronger off-platform monitoring for grooming and exploitation.