A popular financial newsletter is accusing Roblox of allowing large-scale child sexual exploitation and inappropriate content on its platform, based on years of media reports. The allegations are detailed The Bear Cavea short selling newsletter – but Roblox says The Bear Cave The founder points out rare cases of abuse to make a profit by making the service look bad.
“This article contains misleading, irresponsible and, in many cases, false allegations about Roblox in order to further the author's motives as a short seller,” said Eric Porterfield, senior director of policy communications at Roblox The edge. “We reject the assertion that child endangerment is a widespread or systemic problem on Roblox and that millions of people have a safe and positive experience on the platform every day.”
The Bear CaveThe report details 16 cases since 2020 in which adults were arrested or charged with sexually exploiting children they met on Roblox. One of them involved a man who “educated 150 children to engage in sexual activity” on the platform. There are also so-called “condo games” in which users simulate sex, as the BBC previously reported. However, these documented incidents only affect a small portion of Roblox's huge user base: The platform has more than 79 million daily active users, 42 percent of whom are said to be 13 years old or younger VentureBeat.
Porterfield said The edge that Roblox continually updates its security practices to “detect and prevent malicious activity on the platform,” including by blocking inappropriate words and phrases in chat and prohibiting picture-to-picture sharing. According to Roblox, the condo games are typically removed quickly – within minutes – and are difficult for average users to find.
The Bear CaveThe report also alleges that Roblox hosts non-sexually inappropriate content, including games in which players reenact school shootings or the Holocaust. The edge has previously reported on reenactments of mass shootings, including the attack on mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Roblox and Wired Reporters saw Nazi role-playing on the platform. In August 2023, two California families sued Roblox for allegedly allowing illegal gambling rings to prey on children on the platform. Roblox has tried unsuccessfully to get the charges dismissed.
Reports of inappropriate content on Roblox — sexual or otherwise — are not a new problem for the service and aren't necessarily surprising given its tens of millions of users. Still, it's a particularly heated issue for Roblox at a time when lawmakers and advocates are debating how much responsibility platforms have for child protection.
Roblox took part in lobbying to shape the Kids Online Safety Act, and its CEO, David Baszucki, traveled to Capitol Hill to meet with lawmakers earlier this year. “One of the things specifically with KOSA is that we want to make sure that this doesn't get shut down when young people, for example, are learning to create and share their creations,” Baszucki said in an April interview with Command lineThis is Alex Heath. “Or if there is organic learning or positive communication in any way on our platform, we don’t restrict that.”