I’ve come to a point where I can no longer stay silent about Roblox — or the entire ecosystem of so-called “child-friendly” games and video content wrapped in pastel colors and packaged as creativity. It’s not creativity. It’s exploitation, and it’s everywhere.

Yes, Roblox has parental controls. On paper, it all looks good. But try using them in real life, and you’ll see how meaningless they are. Despite every setting activated, toxic content still slips through — disturbing avatars, violent gameplay, jump-scare horror themes disguised as “adventure,” and user-generated games full of dismembered characters, blood-colored filters, eyes missing, people pushing each other off platforms or killing each other on loop.

You’d think this is an exaggeration. I wish it were. But I’ve seen it with my own eyes, just walking past my child’s screen. Even when I switch his to YouTube Kids, he still finds a way to watch those Roblox YouTubers — because he’s addicted. It’s not a preference. It’s compulsion. And he’s not alone. His classmates show the same signs: obsessive talk about death, emotional shutdowns, sudden crying fits, dark thoughts they can’t explain. Some of them stop thinking about dying when they read, or eat, or sleep — but it comes back the next day after another dose of Roblox and its twisted universe of content.

What’s even worse is how this addiction is designed to bypass parents completely. We set two hours a day, thinking that’s already generous. But during a busy workday, when your child nags you for “just 10 more minutes” — and you’re on a deadline — you click “approve” just to get five minutes of peace. Until one day you realize it’s not two hours anymore. It’s six. Sometimes seven. And every day, the behavior gets worse — needier, more emotional, less human.

We were told Family Link would help. That screen time limits work. But we were never told that the platforms themselves are built to manipulate children’s emotions, and slowly wear down the people raising them.

This is not just about a game. This is about how tech companies — especially those behind platforms like Roblox — have offloaded responsibility to parents while offering “controls” that are more PR than protection. If a game aimed at 8-year-olds allows mutilation, horror, suicide references, and a dark aesthetic drenched in red and black, that is not a creative platform. That is corporate negligence.

I know many Western parents still believe giving a smartphone at 4 or 5 years old is normal. That it teaches digital literacy. That kids need it for WhatsApp or school or social belonging. But I no longer buy into that. Not when it’s clearly harming them. Not when even adults now are detoxing from phones just to feel peace again — and we expect an 8-year-old to self-regulate?

Enough is enough.

I’ve deleted the Roblox account. I’ve removed YouTube access. I’ve confiscated the smartphone. My child now uses a basic call-and-text watch. That’s all. If I have to choose between “fitting in” and saving his soul, I’ll choose the latter every single time.

This isn’t about poverty or pride. It’s not about looking strict or backwards. It’s about refusing to let tech companies — and the influencer parasites orbiting them — hijack our children’s minds while we sit back pretending it’s “just a phase.”

It’s not a phase.

It’s a business model. And I refuse to be complicit in it anymore.