Roblox is rolling out a new AI system that doesn’t just block profanity in chat: it rewrites it.
Rather than just censoring bad language, the platform’s new system automatically rephrases profanity into something more polite while keeping the original meaning intact.
It’s a new AI-powered feature from Roblox that is designed to “keep gameplay fluid while maintaining civility within chat”:
Roblox is leveraging AI to automatically rephrase profanity. Rather than displaying only hashmarks, filtered text will be translated into more respectful language that remains closer to the user’s original intent. For example, a message that violates Roblox’s profanity policies, such as “Hurry TF up!” would previously have appeared as “####” within experience chat. That will now be rephrased to “Hurry up!” This new layer is designed to maintain civility by rephrasing the language and replacing “stop signs” with real-time guidance.
Specifically:
When a message violates Roblox’s profanity policy, everyone in the chat is notified that the text has been rephrased to keep things civil. While rephrasing reduces some of the disruption in the chat, Roblox’s multilayered safety system remains in effect for more serious behavior. Rephrasing is available exclusively for in-experience chat between age-checked users in similar age groups and is supported in all languages currently available through Roblox’s automatic translation tools.
Alongside this new AI-based capability, Roblox is also tweaking its text filtering system:
Early results from Roblox’s testing show significant improvements in detecting leet-speak, or letters replaced with numbers or symbols, and more sophisticated attempts to bypass filters.
Parents may applaud real-time rephrasing as a way for the service to nudge younger users away from bad language in their interaction with others, without stopping them playing altogether. But it creates a dangerous proof of concept that others may build on, particularly in jurisdictions that want stricter controls on what people say online.
The internet remains a bigoted dumpster fire, but at least the swear words will now be grammatically polite.
What the fork? Is this some crazy shirt, or what?
Automated censorship is still censorship.