Online Privacy and Safety
The other major feature of Lego Universe is the way it’s build to protect kids. Lego and NetDevil were insistent that this be a safe place for kids to run around and have fun, and they’ve done their best to create a safe environment that doesn’t feel restrictive. There’s a level of automatic filtering that is done, but they also rely heavily on human moderators.
Here’s how it works: when you create your minifig character for the game, you can choose a three-word combination from a list of approved words for your name — “UltraHotPancakes” was one of the names that came up randomly. If you want to use a name that’s not on the list, you submit it and a human moderator will check it over; until it’s approved you have a temporary name. When you chat with other players, there’s a white-list of approved words that will pop up while you type, sort of like predictive text. It serves a dual purpose—to make sure players aren’t using inappropriate language, but also to help make chatting faster for younger kids who may not know how to type and spell very well. There is a black-list of banned words, but more than that they also watch out for phrasing that, while it uses words from the white-list, may be inappropriate for other reasons. For instance, the game won’t allow you to ask a stranger “Where do you live?”
There’s also a system in place that tracks your behavior in the game (not just chatting) to make sure that you are who you claim to be. A 30-year-old plays the game and interacts with other players in a different way than an 8-year-old would; so if there’s an “8-year-old” who seems a bit off, they’ll get flagged so a human moderator can take a closer look. A big part of their safety is figuring out processes so that dangerous interactions get bumped up in the queue for moderators, while harmless interactions are allowed through.
When you use FreeBuild to create your own models, they have to go through a moderation process before you can share them with the world. We don’t want our kids running into a bunch of Lego genitalia, for instance. I believe models are also viewed by human moderators before being approved. NetDevil is relying on moderators from all around the world so that all time zones are covered. There are also ways to flag things that are offensive — even things created by the Lego Universe team—from models to chats to other player’s behavior. And if there’s a player that simply won’t leave you alone, you can also choose to Ignore them, which makes them invisible to you.
Of course, as with any filtering service, there are bound to be mistakes, and false positives are particularly frustrating. What if you just built a really cool model and you want to show somebody you know? You don’t want to sit and wait half an hour or a couple hours for it to get approved. That’s where the Best Friends system comes in. If you know another player, you can choose to become Best Friends, which then allows you to have unmoderated chats with each other, and share Lego models without having to go through the moderation process first.
Of course, only time will tell how well all this will work, but I was impressed with the amount of planning NetDevil had done to make Lego Universe as safe and comfortable for kids as possible.
