A few weeks ago, we covered a story explaining how theRobloxCEO, David Baszucki, expressed his goal of setting upRoblox as a potential dating site. Mind you, this wasn’t just a quickly stated remark, as he’s expressed his goal to expand Roblox’s content into 17+ areas for a few years now, such asthis 2023 keynote(around the 1 hour 40 minute mark).
If the red flag isn’t already glaring, Roblox is widely known for its child-centric userbase. Although the CEO may be aiming to capture a more adult-oriented audience,the fact of the matter is that Roblox will always be inescapably connected to its large underage audience.
However, in the past few weeks, a few more points have come to light. For one, Roblox has banned and threatened to sue popular creatorSchlepfor releasing To Catch A Predator-esque videos linked to Roblox.
So, not only has the entire Roblox community been up in arms against the potential dating features the CEO has promised, but now,Chris Hansen, the leading face of To Catch A Predator, has supposedly been in contact with Schlep with the sole purpose of bringing to light many of Roblox’s predator-centric problems.
Although “Chris Hansen Creating Documentary About Roblox Scandals” sounds way too insane to be true, the truth is that Roblox’s policies and actions in the past few months have been way too interesting for people like Chris Hansen to pass up.
For the Schlep drama in particular,an announcementmade by Schlep has revealed that his actions within Roblox have led to “six confirmed arrests of alleged child predators.” As a YouTuber, a lot of this is documented directly on his YouTube channel, for anyone to see.
Furthermore, Schlep himself has explained that he has a personal connection to the “predator hunting” cause on his channel, having been allegedly directly affected by the actions of a groomer on Roblox in the past.
The truth is, banning and then threatening to sue Schlep has undoubtedly caused a shift in the Roblox community, with #freeschlep trending on socials everywhere.This hashtag has not only become the defence against Schlep himself, but the cry of Roblox fans who want better protection for the children who play this game.
Ultimately, given Schlep’s past actions and the community’s massive approval, evidencedby over 50,000 signatureson an online petition,it’s no surprise that the king of predator catching, Chris Hansen, is interested in what’s going on.
Understanding The Actions Of Roblox
The main reason why Roblox has been going against this wave of Roblox vigilantes is that they argue it creates “an unsafe environment for users.” This was revealedin a recent statementby Roblox’s Chief Safety Officer, Matt Kaufman.
To begin, they express how “these groups began by reporting safety concerns, commenting on news about Roblox, and challenging us to do better.We appreciated this feedback and used these reports to improve our safety systems.”
However, it appears that after a while, they began to have their concerns, as the actions eventually led to the creation of an “unsafe environment and normalized behavior that is both unacceptable on Roblox and is against our Terms of Use.”
In order to catchillegal activities on Roblox, they often need to bait users into chats and conversations that lead to sexually explicit territory.This means that, despite being done to catch illegal activities, the vigilantes still use the Roblox platform in ways that technically violate its rules, giving Roblox an easy reason to ban the users.
Schlep’sdefense of these actionsseems to be that official agencies like the FBI, local police, and of course, To Catch A Predator, use similar tactics. Although it may go against their terms, that doesn’t mean what he’s doing is inherently unjustified.
Roblox’s defense also relies on the fact that many tactics employed by Schlep and other vigilantes involve withholding information until absolutely necessary, meaning “bad actors could potentially remain on the platform longer, leaving the community open to additional risk of harm.”
However, this whole situation still stems from an issue that Roblox is potentially ignoring, which is that child predators and illegal activities are committed on Roblox on a seemingly average basis, with Roblox’s official actions mostly being to cover up a larger scandal.
Looking a bit closer, you can see that states such as Louisiana are alreadysuing Roblox over child safety, and so Roblox’s current situation seems to be trying to get this massive scandal off their back.
Although many of Roblox’s actions may not have been done with the worst intentions, banning a child predator-catching content creator from a game that thousands of children play every day has given the community an easy excuse to go up in arms.This includes apetition that has blown up, asking the Roblox CEO to resign.
And with Chris Hansen being the largest icon of predator catching, it’s no wonder that he would take this whole fiasco to heart. If a documentary is eventually made, it’ll be interesting to see what he has to say on this matter.
Despite this entire scandal, I believe the prevailing sentiment remains clear:Roblox is a platform for children, so it should remain safe and regulated from bad actors that could potentially harmand disrupt that environment.
