Using PolicyService to display a Discord notification to players

General
#1

A while ago I made a post on the developer forum about using PolicyService to determine if we can display Discord invites to players. The general response was “it’s too early to tell, moderation policies probably haven’t caught up”.

That post is probably coming up to around 5 months old now so I’m wondering if anyone has any experience with using PolicyService for this purpose or knows whether or not it is allowed now?

This is the response to the GetPolicyInfoForPlayerAsync method:

{
   "IsSubjectToChinaPolicies":false,
   "IsPaidItemTradingAllowed":true,
   "ArePaidRandomItemsRestricted":false,
   "AllowedExternalLinkReferences":[
      "Discord",
      "YouTube",
      "Twitch",
      "Facebook"
   ]
}

As you can see, it states that I am allowed to reference Discord. Does anyone currently use this to determine if they can talk about their Discord community in-game?

I want my Discord community to integrate very tightly with the game. For example, being active in the Discord will grant in-game perks (and vice-versa, being a high-level in-game grants perks in the Discord). I’d also like to do certain Discord events that appear randomly with the bot to help community engagement.

My hope is that I can use PolicyService to display a message to users that are allowed to see Discord for a lot more footfall on the server. Most people aren’t going to look at the social links unless they are actively looking for the server, but displaying it to them in-game will entice a lot more players to join.

What do you think? Is this safe to do yet?

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#2

PolicyService is implemented as part of the upcoming Global Compliance System, and it’s likely that it will replace the existing terms of service ban on offsite URL’s. However, until the terms of service are changed to reflect this API addition, it is just that. An addition to the API that will be used in the future.

So in short, the answer is that unfortunately, until Roblox changes the Terms of Service and announces that PolicyService will be required in order to retrieve permissions for specific players that override the platform-wide restrictions in place today, you cannot use PolicyService to display any offsite URL’s or reference to offsite platforms.

If anything, combined with the restrictions outlined in the announcement, the data returned by GetPolicyInfoForPlayerAsync should be used as an extra restriction on top of the current Terms of Service. So, if a 13+ player is playing your game from China or another restricted region where ‘AllowedExternalLinkReferences’ doesn’t include YouTube, you would be breaking compliance by displaying a YouTube reference despite the ToS allowing this.

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#3

This is where I’m confused about the whole “it’s not ready yet” argument, as the linked thread clearly states "We’re starting with the Chinese market first and today released documentation on the GetPolicyInfoForPlayerAsync API. "

To me, this implies “GetPolicyInfoForPlayerAsync” is indeed compliant, as you must use it to determine if your game is compliant with Chinese policies. Now, you may state the keyword is Chinese policies, however if thats the case then the API needs to know other countries policies as well. Additionally, I did test this API with a 13+ and Under 13 account, and as expected, it does not return any “AllowedExternalLinkReferences” for Under 13. I did shoot an email to Devrelations about it, but haven’t received a word since.

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