Crime Even More Problems at Roblox (RBLX) - "Roblox has facilitated more child abuse than any public company in history."

(Link) (https://archive.ph/jtgqp)

SPRATE NOTE: this article is partially behind a paywall - everything in this post is what was publicly available.

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Roblox (NYSE: RBLX — $18.0 billion) is a popular platform for children generally between six and fourteen to play online. The Bear Cave previously published on Roblox in February 2022 and alleged that “the company has engaged in litigation and intimidation to help conceal allegations of pedophilia on the platform.” Today’s investigation by The Bear Cave finds that Roblox has facilitated hundreds of known child abuse cases, popular Roblox game developers have been arrested on child abuse allegations, Roblox games include images of dismembered bodies and Nazi logos, and the company has been linked to child suicide attempts and the widespread production of child pornography. In sum, The Bear Cave believes Roblox has facilitated more child abuse than any public company in history.

In April of this year, FOX2Detroit reported that 21-year-old Danil Baker met a 14-year-old girl through Roblox and “pretended to be a 17-year-old” and “convinced the victim to give him her phone number and started texting, and allegedly convinced the girl to share nude images.” Baker then “picked her up from school in Ohio and took her to a park [and] coerced her to perform sex acts on him.” At the time, Baker was out on bond for a separate pending criminal case also involving a minor.

Ultimately, the 14-year-old girl was “found crying alone in the bathroom of a Kroger.”

In February 2022, 33-year-old Howard Graham drove around 900 miles to meet a 13-year-old girl he had connected with two days earlier on Roblox. Graham drove the girl from her home in Topeka, Kansas back to his home in Clayton County, Georgia. The next month Graham, who had a prior criminal matter from 2007, was arrested on multiple charges including “rape, kidnapping, and sex trafficking.” Regarding the case, Clayton County Police Captain John Ivy said,

“The subject got on there, praising these little kids, because they think they’re playing on there with other kids. And they’re not. They’re playing with people who are preying on kids. We’re extremely lucky we found this young girl and she’s alive.”

Police found the 13-year-old girl outside a Dollar General.

In January of this year, a federal jury in Grand Island, Nebraska indicted 26-year-old Tadashi Kojima on charges he “willfully and unlawfully kidnapped a 13-year-old and took the minor across state lines with the intent to engage in illegal sexual activity.” The child’s father told police “his son had been communicating with someone while playing Roblox and then was invited to talk on a chatroom service.” In an interview, the child’s mother, Heather McConney, said in part,

“I don’t understand what this person had on my son. What grasp he had on him that convinced him to just walk away.”

(Heather McConney, mother of a 13-year-old boy who was kidnapped after messaging a predator on Roblox.)

Grand Island Police found the 13-year-old boy along with Kojima sitting inside a white Toyota Avalon at a Git-N-Split convenience store.

Law enforcement seems acutely aware that Roblox is an unchallenging place for predators to meet children. For example, Osiel Mendoza Guevara, a 20-year-old Georgia sheriff’s deputy, flew from Georgia to Alabama to allegedly meet with a 16-year-old girl he had connected with over Roblox. Guevara was charged with “enticing a child for immoral purposes” this January. News reports added, “Investigators are asking parents to keep a close eye on what their children are doing on these platforms, saying evil intent can lurk in what appears to be the most harmless of activities.”

An October 2022 lawsuit filed in the San Francisco Superior Court against Roblox “for the harms caused to a 13-year-old [girl] and her family, beginning when she was only 10 years old, from use of and exposure to Defendants’ unreasonably dangerous and defective products” raises more concerns.

The lawsuit alleges at age ten the victim, abbreviated as S.U., was given an iPad with Roblox installed but was quickly connected to “adult men who abused her for months” and was coerced into downloading other apps to share inappropriate photos. The lawsuit also alleges, in part,

“From the outset, S.U. was approached by adult males who claimed to want to be her ‘friend.’ They were allowed to message her privately through the Roblox private message features, but also messaged her in group chats once they learned that she was a minor female. S.U. always wondered how Roblox knew when someone was swearing, or fighting, or engaged in other ‘prohibited’ behavior on the Roblox game but ignored entirely the rampant and overt sexual advances she received from adult players on a regular basis.”

(Page 57 of October 2022 lawsuit against Roblox and others.)

The lawsuit adds that the victim attempted suicide in July 2020, attempted suicide again in August 2020, and planned a third attempt for her 12th birthday in March 2021. Ultimately, she “had to withdraw from school after multiple suicide attempts.”

A recent video by popular 26-year-old Roblox YouTuber Ruben Sim appears to corroborate the lawsuit’s allegations that predators often first meet children on Roblox and then use Roblox to lure children to other sites. For example, in some Roblox group chats used to trade virtual items such as virtual clothing and accessories, The Bear Cave believes predators will encourage children to download other apps, like Snapchat and Discord, to have more open communication.

In one Roblox chat first highlighted by Ruben Sim, a Roblox user says “add me to trade on [ghost emoji] (only girls)” with the ghost emoji representing Snapchat. Another user writes “add me to trade on [disc emoji] girls. (14 btw),” a likely reference to Discord.


(Screenshots from December 2022 Ruben Sim YouTube video “ROBLOX NEEDS MY HELP” 6:36 mark and 6:52 mark)

Roblox doesn’t appear to appreciate the efforts to highlight pedophilia on its platform. In November 2021, Roblox sued YouTuber Ruben Sim for $1.6 million and issued a lifetime ban on his usage of the platform.

Nonetheless, many top comments on the Ruben Sim Roblox video agree that Roblox moderation is not up to par and read, in part,

“Roblox really is just falling apart. Glad you're doing stuff like this because the Roblox moderators don't do [anything] literally almost half of the time unless they are caught…”

“Imagine a multi-billion-dollar corporation not being able to have a bare minimum moderation team.”

“It’s sad that most of the time Roblox moderation literally has to be called out by the voices of big YouTubers to take decisions on stuff like these.”

Sometimes the predators are Roblox’s own game developers.

In July 2022, Roblox game developer Arnold Castillo was “arrested on charges of transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and coercion and enticement of a minor.” Castillo had gained a major following on Roblox starting in 2017 after developing a popular Sonic the Hedgehog spinoff Roblox game and would allegedly encourage children to join his off-platform Discord server for the game.

Notably, in an unlisted October 2022 video with over 1 million views titled, “The Roblox Developer Arrested By The FBI” Ruben Sim said he had repeatedly warned Roblox and police about Castillo as early as 2020, but the company took de minimis action.

The top comment on that video reads,

“The fact that Roblox protected this predator is insane, thankfully police finally took action against him.”

Problems in Roblox’s developer community run deep.

Another example is “MisterObvious” a major Roblox developer who won a “Bloxy award” from Roblox for being one of the best developers in the Roblox community. Ruben Sim later published videos, audio, and text screenshots showing “MisterObvious” sending and soliciting inappropriate content from underage girls. In addition, in April 2017 he filed a police report and in June 2017 uploaded a video on YouTube with over 1.2 million views covering the allegations. Roblox ultimately terminated MisterObvious’s account… in May 2021.

And just earlier this month another popular Roblox developer faced allegations of inappropriate conduct.

These issues extend to Roblox corporate as well. As The Bear Cave previously reported: “Roblox’s former social media manager ran a pornographic blog while employed by the company. Roblox’s official Twitter account retweeted content made by a self-described pedophile [and] Roblox allegedly shut down its own community forum after it became inundated with links to illegal child porn sites.”

None of these are isolated cases. Below is just a sampling of additional stories on child abuse facilitated by Roblox:

29-year-old convicted pedophile Owain Thomas “groomed 150 children to engage in sexual activity using Roblox” and the volume of abuse was “possibly unprecedented.” 48-year-old registered sex offender Clinton McElroy was arrested after convincing an 8-year-old girl “into sending sexually explicit videos in exchange for Robux.” 18-year-old Ron Machluf was indicted for using Roblox “to lure and commit sexual offenses against several girls between the ages of 7 and 12.” 23-year-old Terrence Barto was arrested for “indecent solicitation of a child, violation of sex offender registry and grooming” after “he contacted a 12-year-old boy in Texas via Roblox.” 61-year-old John Mathew Piecuch was indicted after posing as a 13-year-old boy on Roblox and “contacting a 12-year-old girl and requesting sexually explicit photos of her and her 5-year-old sibling.” 45-year-old Patrick Shane Penczak was charged with seven counts of crimes against children after meeting kids through Roblox. Two months ago, 21-year-old Daniel Diaz was arrested “for contacting a minor for purposes of committing a felony offense” after meeting with a child he contacted through Roblox. And last week, 19-year-old Faruq Balogun was arrested “for arranging to meet with a minor for lewd purposes” after connecting with a child on Roblox.

Roblox CEO and founder David Baszucki sees things differently. In a June 2023 interview with The Verge titled, “Roblox doesn’t want to be just a kids game,” Baszucki was asked about the company’s conversations with lawmakers around safety on the platform and responded, in part,

“I think we are in an exceptional position both from a company culture point of view as well as strategically what we are building as a platform. Our Civility people are out speaking in various forums trying to take a leadership role in what’s the vision for kids on the Internet.” (13:52)

(Roblox CEO and founder David Baszucki talks about how Roblox “keeps the platform safe for kids.”)

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That's it, the rest is paywalled. If anybody gets ahold of the rest of the article, I'll add it here.

Subscribe to Ruben Sim.

 

[Anasa Tristis]

This journo scum is charging 64 fucking US dollaroos a month to get premium access to his Substack. That's fucking absurd, if he actually cared about combatting child exploitation he would list this for FREE and make this vital information publicly available to everyone for the good of society. What a greedy fuck. I hope that he never gets credit for anything he's done.

Paid subscribers also receive two deep-dive investigations every month. The investigations typically highlight $1-$10 billion U.S. companies that are misleading investors or harming customers and are published on the first and third Thursday every month at 10:30am ET.

The investigations for paid subscribers focus on serious problems the market is missing such as false or misleading statements by management, disclosure issues, accounting issues, SEC comment letters, changes in revenue recognition policies, public litigation, executive turnover, and complaints obtained through FOIA requests.

It's an investigative investment news Substack for those who like to make money shorting stocks. Apparently his 50K subscribers think it's worth the hefty price tag. Also on his About page he offers "aggressive discounts" and free subs to students, the unemployed, etc.

 

[The Hero of Kvatch]

There was something Ruben said about his lawsuit on a livestream with Turkey Tom, couple months back.
IIRC, what he said was along the lines of this:

Roblox are basically suing him not for the money, but to send a message. He thinks they're doing it not because they can make a profit, but because Ruben makes a loss. Roblox is already a massive company, they've got so much money that $2m doesn't matter to them. They want to see Ruben struggling to make the payments and shit. They want to see him suffer because he had the fucking balls to publicly call out Roblox on all their shit. They wanna basically say, "If you call us out on our shit, we're gonna fuck you up, HARD"

Ruben Sim's life would've been completely fucked if he had to send $2m to Roblox. Roblox probably stopped just short of sending a hitsquad to Ruben's house to blow his head off.

Turkey Tom's version of the livestream
Not sure when it's brought up, but I recommend watching the livestream as Ruben gives more insight on Roblox, it's community, the company and his lawsuit. Also a pretty entertaining livestream.

 

[Super Dilator Duel 3D]

There's an entire generation being completely warped and abused by the internet right now thanks to idiot parents being atrociously terrible at their jobs and being mostly unaware of that danger to their children

On one hand, blame lies very heavily on the parents who refuse to watch their kids online, of course. But the fact that the kids themselves are the ones suffering for their negligence is just heartbreaking.

Ultimately, the 14-year-old girl was “found crying alone in the bathroom of a Kroger.”

This is fucking horrible. Especially because I know that right now, there is a sizeable group of people who would read this line and actively get off to it. And on top of that, the Roblox corporation looks at this situation, this end result, and says "that sucks but nothing we can do! keep letting your kids buy our shit!"

The nuke can not come soon enough.

 

[Anonitolia]

On one hand, blame lies very heavily on the parents who refuse to watch their kids online, of course. But the fact that the kids themselves are the ones suffering for their negligence is just heartbreaking.

I agree, which is why I said that there should be something done about it. I'm very much against government intervention- or, really, any non-family intervention- when raising kids, and it's hard not to just blame the parents and call the situation "unfortunate" as a result, but this is rampant and proven pedophilia + child labor we're talking about. I highly highly doubt that putting out PSAs about this shit would be "going too far" by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[The Hero of Kvatch]

I agree, which is why I said that there should be something done about it. I'm very much against government intervention- or, really, any non-family intervention- when raising kids, and it's hard not to just blame the parents and call the situation "unfortunate" as a result, but this is rampant and proven pedophilia + child labor we're talking about. I highly highly doubt that putting out PSAs about this shit would be "going too far" by any stretch of the imagination.

It's because parents really don't like being told how to raise their own kids. While I'm also very much against Gov intervention, other family should step in when the main family doesn't raise their kids right. If a mother and father allows their kid to be whisked away in the night by some perv on Roblox, the mother and father aren't really fit to be raising that child, and that child should probably be raised by someone else. Preferably close family, like an aunt or some shit.

But I don't think the blame sits solely on parents, it also falls on Roblox's shoulders, because they put the bare minimum into moderating their children's site. The most they have is an automated chat filter that stops you calling some 12 year old a fucking cunt or a faggot.

If some kid gets snatched by a child molester on Roblox, blame falls onto the parents for not moderating what their children are up to on the internet, and Roblox who don't moderate their site aimed towards an average user age of 12 year olds.

 

[Markass the Worst]

Now do Discord.

Many of the child grooming and exploitation that happens on Roblox takes place over Discord. After all it's one click away to get the child off the site and onto somewhere unmonitored where there's no word filter.

 

[The Ugly One]

Corporations can react instantly to use AI/ML algorithms to censor any questioning of official narratives around COVID-19 or the 2020 election, but nope, they can't stop child porn and grooming, sorry, it's just beyond us.

 

[变性黑鬼]

Mine are allowed to play but they have to do it in the family areas of the house where I can see or hear and I do keep an eye on it.
Everything’s locked down as much as is possible. No chat, voice or text. Only friends are friends from school that I can confirm who they are. I check their profiles regularly for chats (none, it’s off but I check anyway) and friend requests. They’ve been told that if anyone approaches them or friends them they tell me (shouldn’t be possible but I tell them anyway)
If there’s anything else I should be doing then I’m grateful to hear it. Other than ‘burn all screen’ which I would do but mr. I is a big gamer and doesn’t mind so I’ve kind of lost that battle

Depending on their age and level of maturity, I think you should try to move from having un-groomable kids because they are inaccessible, to un-groomable kids because they know what groomers are.

Teaching them about groomers, and other dangers, will add to their Cyber Literacy stat, which is very important for interacting with their peers, the world, and the web.

 

[RodgerDodger]

Now do Discord.

I do not wish to contemplate the relief boners of Discord mods reading this and realizing that the crosshairs have shifted, their kitten harems are still snugly tucked away on private servers.

In all seriousness I had no idea Roblox was this bad and that is some horrifying shit. If someone had taken an excerpt of this and asked me to guess which online environment it was I really would have bet the house on Discord. The fact that those numbers are coming from not a chat service but a children's game is so fucked up.

Discords day is coming. This weeks Discord.io hack has then panicking. That mostly involved pedo furry groomer shit. And its out in the wild were inconvenient types like State Law Enforcement can browse through it.

And State level law enforcement likes pedophile cases. They run up their numbers and everybody cheers. No blowback or rioting. Easy and cheap convictions. Even if the Feds may try and ignore it at times.

It's bod horrifying and hilarious how much certain of our off the cuff truisms hold up. "All adult minecradt and roblox professiinals are pedophiles. And most non retarded adults playing those games are as well". If they just rounded up all of the over 18 Roblox twatwaffles they would probably reduce child molestation worldwide by 15-20%. Nailing everyone but the kabobs.

 

[Otterly]

Depending on their age and level of maturity, I think you should try to move from having un-groomable kids because they are inaccessible, to un-groomable kids because they know what groomers are.

That’s the plan. First lock it all down and gradually open up with appropriate info. They’re a mix of ages, and the older ones are on that path. They get a lot of freedom in some ways and maybe less than their peers in others. You can’t wrap them in cotton wool forever, but you can hopefully give them the awareness and trust in you to navigate it all.

 

[Anonitolia]

That’s the plan. First lock it all down and gradually open up with appropriate info. They’re a mix of ages, and the older ones are on that path. They get a lot of freedom in some ways and maybe less than their peers in others. You can’t wrap them in cotton wool forever, but you can hopefully give them the awareness and trust in you to navigate it all.

incredibly based parenting
your kids are lucky to have you dude

 

[SNEED.EXE]

I used to play Roblox around 2008-2010, just before the outbreak of ODing (online dating) on it. They've had 13 years to do something about this. Dave Baszucki is a little suspicious, considering he's allowed it to continue this long.

 

[Scavenger]

I used to play Roblox around 2008-2010, just before the outbreak of ODing (online dating) on it. They've had 13 years to do something about this. Dave Baszucki is a little suspicious, considering he's allowed it to continue this long.

I used to play roblox back in 2011 , ODing (Online dating) was the equvalent to roleplay and looked completely harmless.
Modern ODing is 10x more fucked up then it was 10 year ago thanks to discord ,troons and pedos.
To quote The Pacific;

Instead of the usual old salt comment—something like, "You think that was bad, you oughta been in the old Corps,"—Haney answered with an unexpected, "Boy, that was terrible! I ain't never seen nothin' like it. I'm ready to go back to the States. I've had enough after that."- MGySgt Elmo "Gunnry" Haney, With the Old Breed

 

[CaptainRockall]

If it hasn't already been done, a South Park episode about Roblox would be interesting.

Cartman being groomed by a Canadian with a frost-bitten penis who then demands 'Even More Privacy!' and goes on a 'Worldwide Even More Privacy Tour' whilst his questionable wife takes selfies with drunken teen girls at posh resorts and health spas.

What's even more, first amendment rights...

 

[ZMOT]

It's because parents really don't like being told how to raise their own kids. While I'm also very much against Gov intervention, other family should step in when the main family doesn't raise their kids right. If a mother and father allows their kid to be whisked away in the night by some perv on Roblox, the mother and father aren't really fit to be raising that child, and that child should probably be raised by someone else. Preferably close family, like an aunt or some shit.

something to keep in mind parenting these days isn't the same as it was 30 or even 20 years ago. the internet is how old now? parents of kids getting groomed are around 30 at best, if not older. and besides that you can't have mom stay at home and keep an eye on the kids when mom has to work too to even afford shit, if not the basics alone when there's no dad in the picture because the nuclear family is patriarchy and working two jobs to make ends meet is the peak of feminist self-actualization.

aunt etc. usually isn't an option either because they come from the same basket, meaning the trajectory more often enough is similar, and so even if the environment is more stable it doesn't mean there's money to take care of kids.

there's really no way out of this mess, as you said government intervention is frowned upon (and no one sane would want to have his kid raised by the current government). maybe tying subsidiaries to more checks, if you want the money you gotta earn it by actual doing proper parenting...

 

[Anonitolia]

if you want the money you gotta earn it by actual doing proper parenting...

except guess who's going to be determining what "proper parenting" is if that happens (clue: it's not the parents)?

there really is no easy way out of this shit
there's a damn good reason people have been heralding the end of times after looking at the state of the modern family unit, and it's not because they're overlooking some easy solution to the whole thing

subsidize schooling so that kids at least "learn more"? oops, all that money is going towards paying a monopoly of old farts that are dogshit at their jobs but get paid loads (more than their contemporaries) for having been at the same school for half a century
encourage the building of a nuclear family through sanitized programming that promotes good moral values but lacks almost any artistic merit whatsoever? oops, the artsy-fartsy fucks in charge of production have made their counter-culture the mainstream as retaliation and now getting married is the definition of sexist patriarchal oppression
straight-up fucking pay people to have children via actual free money or healthcare coverage? it might work in a hundred years, but until then you've got a solid 2 or 3 generations with not enough young people to keep up with the demand the old places upon their society (another solution with a similar result: literally screaming "please have sex" at your population)

this is a culture problem and it has been for long enough that it's now been ingrained into the heads of several generations as "the right way to be" and will be much, much, much harder to fix
I'm not sure any kid born after the 80s is expecting a traditional home life to either be within their reach or even an option for their later years, and no matter how "liberating" that might be for some it means some form of doom (minor or major) for the size of this country's population

the "trad" backlash to this kind of stuff that's happening now gives me a little bit of hope, but some zoomers wishing for a proper wife and children won't fix the fact that both parents will still have to work if they want to make ends meet past 1 or 2 children (or, depending on where you live, any at all)

all of this is also affected by shit like the gender war- LGBT shit is extremely detrimental to raising children for obvious reasons, not to mention the fact that men are blamed for so many things now makes them just not want to bother with women + women get a false impression of men through only seeing negative depictions of them and being taught mostly to fear them if they don't want to be raped/abused so they lash out and either don't pair up with men or do it anyways while making the men feel like shit for normal male behavior- as well as the broken public education system (which I already kind of mentioned, but I mean the actual curriculum and how the school functions as opposed to the retarded school boards) and the constant fearmongering making people truly believe that it'd be worse for their children to exist at all than to let them live in "a climate dystopia"

 

[lurking for the deets]

If I'm remembering right, Roblox made a statement a while back about the banning policy, that if the child abuse happened off-site they have nothing to do with it and will only issue bans for incidents that happened in-game. Regardless if the pedophile met the kid through the game and is actively still doing it...Getting actively abusing pedophiles banned from there is like pulling teeth. Most of the pedophiles are making big money for the company as most of the ones that get exposed are popular game devs running a child sweatshop

This statement came out during the Ruben Sims case. I'm not sure where to find this statement though, it was repeated many times during expose videos without a direct link and was said years back. Searched online for that specific statement but kept getting articles about sexual abuse.

While searching I found an article from 2022 [A] was sued along with other social media companies in a case involving a 10-year-old girl who was sexually abused. Here's a few pages and a link to the 83 page document [A] Seems more like a lawsuit about specific features harming kids and is involving many companies and Roblox is just a part of it.

Spoiler: Pages from the Roblox/Discord/Facebook/Snap suit

page 1

page 2

page 16, involving discord. The girl apparently relied on a "Keep Me Safe" feature on discord that did not keep her safe.

page 57, Roblox bans gamer words but ignores the pedophile sex pests' messages.

page 58-61, more info on the girl's history/heath

I couldn't find the outcome of this though, and have no idea how to search the courts. The first page doesn't have a case number listed, though

 

[Cheese Sandwich]

"Sometimes the predators are Roblox’s own game developers."
IT'S A FEATURE, NOT A BUG

 

[WonderWino]

On the topic of roblox being horrifying for facilitating child abuse I present this:

https://nichegamer.com/roblox-wants-to-make-a-dating-space-for-minors-and-adults/

Roblox wants to make a dating space for minors and adults​

by Brandon Lyttle on September 9, 2023 at 11:05 AM, EDT

Roblox announced in their recent keynote speech that they wanted to branch out into helping form “real life relationships”.

This alone, isn’t necessarily cause for concern. Roblox is one of the most popular online games out there today. But Roblox CEO David Baszucki showed a slide explaining that users as young as 17 would be eligible for “17+” experiences.

These aren’t just avatars. Roblox plans on making connections with real people via this dating service, a video chat app hooked into Roblox, and even the ability to use AI to make an avatar that’s more like your real self. It’s one thing when it’s fictional characters, but these are real minors behind the screen.

This isn’t true in all of the world, but in the United States the age of consent is 18, as it is in many other locations. It’s worth mentioning that Roblox is based in San Mateo, California. Hopefully there is more nuance to the company’s actual plans.

You can check out the plans Roblox has for the future in their keynote address below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfYz8weQm4M
Roblox enables users to create their own online experiences and many “Devs” create games within games on the Roblox platform. Conversely, this openness has led to previous issues in the past such as when a user made a “game” which was just a theater to show Kim Kardashian’s sex tape.

Roblox is available now for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S (via backwards compatibility), Android, iOS, PC, and soon on PlayStation and Quest VR.

Because when your platform is full of pedos and taking major heat for it the smart move is to turn it into a dating site 'for minors and adults'

 

[The Hero of Kvatch]

Shit I heard of that. Fucking terrible. Roblox is actively enabling predators on its platform. I suppose they have been for years, but they're not even trying to hide it anymore.

I used to be a Roblox player what feels like centuries ago, and I still recall there being a rule against online dating. The fuck changed? Why the sudden 180° on Roblox's part?