Is Roblox endangering minors through an unsafe and unmoderated platform?
by Andre Garcia
Feature/Q+A Editor
The outrage continues over Roblox’s handling of the Schlep situation. Roblox, a massive corporation headed by David Baszucki, is under fire after banning a Roblox YouTuber who goes by the name of Schlep. Schlep was a popular Roblox YouTuber who worked with law enforcement to try to get predators arrested off of their platform; many people in the Roblox viewed this as unjust because Schlep did not do anything illegal or against “vigilante norms” to get banned. A major figure in the Roblox community, “greenlegocats123,” stated in his video “The Worst Thing Roblox has Ever Done” that “What Roblox has done I think is the single biggest mistake they’ve ever made and I am completely serious about that.”
As to the reason why Roblox is receiving all of this hate, their poor moderation and handling of user safety has much to do with it. On Roblox, there is a feature where users can report players who violate the Terms of Service; the problem, however, is these reports do not work the majority of the time. Furthermore, Roblox does not take action when people who play their game on different services (like Discord) violate their policies. What Schlep and these “Predator Hunters” did was try to moderate the platform for Roblox, who didn’t do it themselves; it is also important to note that many of the conversations and actions that these “Predator Hunters” like Schlep took were on off-site platforms like Discord.
Roblox is also being sued because of this situation. Although the lawsuits do not directly involve Schlep, many of them have been caused because of the situation. The Louisiana governor is suing Roblox because they “prioritize user growth, revenue, and profits over child safety”. There are also many more smaller lawsuits that have arisen due to this situation.
When Northern students were asked about their views on Roblox today, they made varying statements. Junior Jacob Danner said “like… I think it’s terrible… I think that people should be able to speak out about problems on their platform.” Another patriot Ellis Jackson, a freshman–said that “[the] corporation, I feel like it’s become, like, a sort of… unsafe environment for kids and they’re not doing anything about it.” As such, it seems that quite a few Patriots are not on board with what Roblox is doing. Even still, many students are going to continue to play Roblox after these accusations came to light—one of whom is junior Patrick Cameron. When asked if he would still continue to play the game, he said “Yeah… because I like the game.” Other students disagreed; junior Ryan James said, “The only reason why [I still play Roblox]… is [that] all my friends play is Roblox now. They don’t play anything else, but I do not personally play Roblox in my free time as I’m not in support of what they are doing.”
Clearly, there is a little bit of a divide between students here at Northern High School. Some students are simply not going to play Roblox after what they have done, yet other students will continue to play games on the platform; overall, though, Roblox Corporation does not seem to be taking much of a hit over this drama. Their stock prices have fluctuated as a result, but overall, they have still seen a net increase in the past month.