Roblox's problematic moderation

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Since Roblox launched in 2004, its moderation has been problematic for its consumers. From an obscene chat filter that has made communication on the platform difficult, to the indirect encouragement of illegal behaviors on the platform intended for young audiences.

Background

No online platform is immune to child predators, especially those geared towards extremely young audiences, however, Roblox has had an extensive history regarding its poor handling of said individuals on the platform. The child predator problem has been exacerbated recently by a decision from the CEO David Baszucki to integrate dating features to the game, despite at minimum 40% of the game's population being under 13 years old.

Problematic moderation

Beyond a questionable chat filtering system, Roblox has historically underinvested in adequate moderation for its userbase. The moderation team is excessively small compared to its competitors, a documented 100-200 moderation on-staff compared to Fortnite's 1,000+ and Minecraft's 500+ members on the moderation staff. Combined with a lack of investment in adequate moderation tools, it has become responsible for an excess of younger audiences being harmed on the platform.

When the platform was investigated by journalists working to uncover how the platform was additionally encouraging the exploitation of underage developers, the company aimed to have the report taken down, thus leading to further research from reporters on People Make Games regarding further harmful moderation controversies. In the follow-up video, the lead developer of a fan game Sonic Eclipse Online on the platform by the alias of Doc spread harmful and sexually-charged comments to female developers on his team, and while his primary account was removed from the platform, Roblox's moderation team has refused to handle the alternate account which owns all the games he published to the platform, nor the games held by this alternate account either, meaning he continued to gain revenue from his project while clearly evading his ban. Soon after the publication of the video, his game would then be taken down via DMCA from SEGA. It was not until mid-2022 that Doc would receive federal charges for abducting a minor through his predatory behavior on the platform, and finally be entirely removed from said platform.

Roblox's response

So far, Roblox has done the following regarding its child predator problem:

• Threatened the content creator Schlep with litigation over vigilantism, despite cited neglect from the moderation by the user.
• The integration of an open-source AI-powered system (Sentinel) to spy on chats.
• Collaborating with law enforcement according to a blog post.

Lawsuits & legal controversies

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Litigation has been frequent for the platform regarding its neglect to handle child predators for several years now.

Arnold Castillo (Feb - Jul 2022)

In February 2022, the lead game developer for the game Sonic Eclipse Online on Roblox, Arnold Castillo, used the platform to groom an anonymous minor. Months later in May, he coerced the minor into crossing state lines to his property via the service Uber. Days after the abduction, the individual was detained and put on trial, and received 2 life sentences and $500k in fines. This occurred after Castillo's extensive history of violating the platform's Terms of Service for the purposes of grooming minors. Both his community and staff released 2 documents covering his harmful behavior on both Roblox and additionally Discord. Roblox's moderation refused to directly handle the situation, despite the extensive reports, and his arrest compiled with the charges he faced were only successful due to datamining efforts via vigilantes on the platform.

Consumer response

Users such as Schlep have turned to vigilantism due to the negligence of the platform's own moderation teams.

Legacy

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The negligence shown by Roblox and the platform's moderation has been a key point within various forms of legal legislation to require identification on online services. Most notably the Online Safety Act within the United Kingdom.