Building safer platforms together: inside Roblox’s new Parents Council and the future of Safety Advisory Boards

When tech companies talk about safety, it’s often in the language of algorithms and enforcement. But behind the scenes, a quieter movement is reshaping how platforms build trust.

From TikTok to OpenAI, Safety Advisory Councils are fast becoming the industry’s conscience, bringing together the experience of panels of experts, advocates, and users to help shape safer, online spaces. But are they actually making a difference or are they just another PR fixture in a world tired of “trustwashing”?

To find out, WebPurify’s Head of Trust & Safety for EMEA, Ailís Daly, sat down with Laura Higgins, Senior Director of Community Safety & Civility at Roblox, one of the first platforms to make advisory councils a core part of its culture. In their conversation, Higgins reveals how Roblox’s new Parents Council and established Teen Council are changing what online collaboration looks like, proving that meaningful participation can be more powerful than policy alone.

A new era of collaboration in platform safety

For many years, online safety was treated as a technical problem, something to be solved with better moderation tools or stricter policies. But as communities grew and the way they interact evolved, it became clear that safety can’t be achieved by technology alone. It requires ongoing dialogue between platforms and the people who use them, a way to bring lived experience and external expertise into every stage of policy and product design.

That’s where advisory councils have shown real promise. These groups bring together voices from across the ecosystem – parents, young people, policy experts, psychologists, and child-rights advocates – to help shape the design of safer experiences. And while they’ve become more common, few platforms have made them as central to their culture as the popular gaming platform, Roblox.

“We have wonderful people working at our platform, as do most,” Higgins told Daly. “But we know what we know. Sometimes you just need a very different perspective or some level of expertise that perhaps we don’t have in-house. Having that kind of impartial, critical friendship can be really helpful when it comes to unpacking potential risks or things we haven’t thought about.”

What are Safety Advisory Councils and why do they matter

In a time when platform safety is under intense scrutiny, advisory councils have become the connective tissue between tech companies, regulators, and the communities they serve. They evolved out of traditional moderation committees, offering something more transparent and collaborative: a way to identify risks before they cause harm.

Today, most major platforms have some form of council. But as Higgins explains, their impact varies. Some operate as showcase boards, meeting occasionally to rubber-stamp updates.

“And that’s okay,” she says. “There’s nothing wrong with that approach, but it doesn’t really have that true advisory element. The way we do it at Roblox is by bringing people in early, before decisions are made, whether that’s in product design or policy updates. We invite the program or project managers leading the work to present directly, share pre-reading materials, and give the board time to digest and prepare thoughtful questions. That way, they can have a genuine one-to-one dialogue with the people making the decisions. It’s been incredibly valuable, and our board members feel they’re genuinely part of the process rather than a last-minute addition.”

It’s a model that even regulators increasingly see as best practice.

“Even senior executives, including the head of safety, have joined these sessions to hear feedback firsthand – even when it’s uncomfortable,” Higgins adds. “That’s the beauty of it. It keeps us accountable.”

A strong council, she says, blends expertise with lived experience. Members might include safety academics, NGOs, policy specialists, and, crucially, users themselves. Parents, teens, and creators bring perspectives that can’t be simulated in spreadsheets or safety dashboards.

Still, not everyone is convinced. Critics argue that councils risk becoming symbolic. Higgins doesn’t disagree. “If you just use them as a last-thought or a tick-box exercise, that’s really not appreciating who they are and the value they bring,” she says. “It’s about engaging in meaningful ways. Where can they most contribute, and how can they really help the community your company is serving?”

That philosophy underpins Roblox’s approach. Every session is hands-on, involving pre-reads, open Q&A, and direct dialogue with the people actually building the tools.

Roblox’s Teen Council: how youth voices shape real change

If the Safety Advisory Board is Roblox’s compass, the Teen Council is its heartbeat. It began in 2023 through a collaboration with Harvard Medical’s Digital Wellness Lab, which asked a deceptively simple question: what would it take to make online spaces more civil in five years? The answer, from a global panel of experts, was unanimous: platforms need to start listening to young people.

“We can’t make decisions for them,” Higgins said. “They need a seat at the table and we need to really, really listen.”

Higgins outlines some of the impact highlights from the first cohort:

• Wellbeing & parental controls: Teens advised on design and even naming conventions. “The teens asked for it,” Higgins says.
• Representation in design: A discussion about avatar makeup led teens to challenge the composition of Roblox’s design team with an ask for a more diverse range of people working on the product.
• Mental Health Awareness Month: The council created and ran a campaign, including a full Instagram takeover.
• Org-wide demand: “The lead for the Teen Council, Andres literally had to create an intake form because everyone wanted the Teen Council’s input,” Higgins recalls.

Once word spread, the council’s influence exploded. “Our whole User Group filled one of the huge meeting rooms while four or five of our Teen Council did a virtual AMA,” Higgins says. “The joy of being able to directly ask, ‘What would you like us to do with this?’ or ‘How does this work for you?’ – it was incredible to watch.”

The scheme was so popular, the council has been re-launched for a second year with a new cohort and expanded to bring in more young people from outside the United States.

Beyond policy, the council has become a leadership incubator. Members learn about digital citizenship, safety design, and collaboration, which is experience they can take into future careers.

“We didn’t want it to just be a one-way street,” Higgins explained. “We wanted them to really get something out of it, to go out and be ambassadors in their community.”

Launching the Parents Council

If the Teen Council was the proof of concept, the Parents Council was the natural next step, and the idea was strongly supported bythe teens themselves. They wanted their parents to have a space of their own.

“We wanted to make sure that parents had a space where they could share their experiences and insights,” Higgins says. “We can’t always agree on everything, but what matters is that the dialogue is open, transparent, and respected.”

The Parents Councils will bring together parents, policy leads, and Roblox’s safety team for structured discussions on everything from accessibility to digital wellbeing. Roblox’s initial councils will be bringing together parents in North America, LatAm and Europe, and will meet early next year, before the scheme is expanded worldwide.

“Not everyone is built for this,” Higgins admitted. “Pick the right people who are going to get the best out of the board. Be very structured from beginning to end. And make sure your whole company is behind it, or the work will go nowhere.”

Making Advisory Councils meaningful, not symbolic

What separates a truly impactful council from a symbolic one is how it operates day to day. For Higgins, success lies in structure, transparency, and follow-through. “It’s one thing to listen,” she says. “It’s another to prove you’ve heard.”

At Roblox, that means creating space for candid discussion, ensuring recommendations reach decision-makers, and acting visibly on feedback. “You can’t just take notes that don’t capture the conversation,” Higgins said. “That’s a cop out.”

Her checklist for meaningful councils includes:

• Respect time and expertise. Avoid box-ticking and “pay to play.” Invite members where they can most contribute to the community’s benefit.
• Bring them in early. Share pre-reads; have project leads present; allow unfiltered dialogue.
• Create feedback loops. Document discussions and next steps; accountability is key.
• Safeguard wellbeing. Open with check-ins; close with check-outs; ensure participants feel supported.
• Staff for the work. “Not everyone is built for this,” Higgins said. “Choose facilitators who can get the best out of the board.”
• Real-world examples drive the point home. During a neurodiversity project with Internet Matters and Ambitious about Autism, one teen revealed she didn’t recognize a red flag icon as “report.”

That insight was shared with the relevant product leads.. “For a lot of them, it was freeing to share,” Higgins says. “Overwhelmingly, it was a positive experience, but they helped us identify where we can do better.”

Beyond Roblox: How Advisory Councils Could Evolve Industry-Wide

Advisory councils aren’t just good ethics, they’re fast becoming good governance. “Child rights is a huge topic at the moment,” Higgins said. “Having a youth board is almost going to become a prerequisite for organizations of a certain size.”

But she acknowledges that not every company can replicate Roblox’s scale. “Smaller studios are often their own moderators and community safety people,” she says. “They’re probably already getting that feedback loop, but it’s just a less formal process.” What matters is authenticity, not size.

Roblox also collaborates with advocacy groups such as Headstream, The Jed Foundation, and Thorn’s NoFilter, inviting them to workshop policies and co-create wellbeing resources. “We don’t just rely on our own board,” Higgins explains. “This isn’t about competition; together we all get better if we share what works.”

That spirit of collaboration is now spreading. Higgins points to the Digital Wellness Lab summit – “Amplify Youth Summit” – “a literal summit of young people” – which brought youth boards from multiple companies together and co-sponsored by Roblox“It’s not about holding it to ourselves,” she said. “It’s about shared learning and shared opportunity.”

Key takeaways for Trust & Safety leaders

Running an advisory council isn’t as simple as inviting people to give feedback. It requires structure, accountability, and buy-in from every level of the organization. “You need your whole company behind you,” Higgins says. “Otherwise, this great work will go nowhere.”

She also believes councils evolve naturally when they work well. “Our Teen Council advised us on what they thought we needed to consider before build in a Parent Council,” she said. “That kind of pay-it-forward piece is absolutely amazing.”

Ultimately, it’s about turning collaboration into a mindset. “It’s one thing to have a great idea,” Higgins added. “But without structure and accountability, it goes nowhere.”

For leaders building their own councils, Higgins suggests the following:

• Define the purpose clearly – it must be advisory, not performative.
• Compensate participants fairly and integrate learning opportunities.
• Involve cross-functional teams early, such as legal, comms, and safety.
• Measure success by influence, not vanity metrics.

“I do actually have a lovely quote from one of our last team council members which I think just sums it up perfectly,” Higgins says. “Teen Council member Helena said, ’Being part of the Roblox Teen Council was an incredible journey that shifted my perspective from a player’s view to a global one, teaching me that creating a safe and positive community is a complex, collaborative effort.’”

Trust and safety can often feel abstract, like a checklist of policies and enforcement tools. But Roblox’s story shows that culture change happens through collaboration, not code. It’s about giving real people a voice in how their digital spaces work.

Higgins emphasizes: “We need to listen and understand to make our platforms better. Safety isn’t something you build for people, it’s something you build with them.”