Around that time in the video what I see is a journalist that did not do his homework, as he crumbled under the CEO's snarky "do you know this research company went out of business?" - he should just started to read the report findings and ask if they are true [1] or popped out the 16 public arrests [2] tied to Roblox in the US of A.
Both journalists were VERY agreeable and were like trying not to pick a fight. Want to talk about the fun stuff Mr CEO? There's no fun when so many kids are being systematically harassed by evil adults in the platform.
To say nothing of the Roblox situation, anyone else having a hard time reading this piece of "reporting"?
It reads, to me, as so obviously slanted and opinionated against Roblox from the outset. It's not trying to portray facts, it's clearly trying to make the reader interpret the situation in an anti-roblox light, instead of letting the reader arrive there on their own.
It must be tiring though to keep the "neutral" approach for every article. How many benefits of doubts is Roblox owed, really? Asking for a more neutral tone is almost akin to asking for Hunter S Thompson to rewrite "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved" in a more neutral tone.
If a journalist does not at least attempt to present their viewpoint as neutral I will immediate presume they have irrational bias and grow skeptical of what the journalist is telling me - no matter what side of the issue their bias is on. In other words, if you talk to me like a salesman I will presume you are trying to sell me and I wont want to buy.
Talk to me like an adult. Tell me what happened. That doesn't mean sugarcoating it. When I read the quotes and combine that with my existing knowledge of Roblox I can come to my own conclusions just fine.
Let the facts speak for themselves. I agree the interview sounds damning. However it reduces the quality of the article to introduce Roblox as a "pedophile hellscape" right off the bat, or tell me how it was so impressive how the interviewer "kept his cool" in response to the answers.
It's honestly the same style of writing anytime Fox news reports on any democratic action, or vice versa for other rags. Except this has a nice dose of "think of the children" that further lets them pull on heartstrings.
Again, fuck Roblox and their lack of an ability to improve on these issues, but this is just trash writing and editing.
Not at all. It reads exactly the opposite: grounded concern, and then an absolute mess of an interview that provides solid reason to question their governance.
> Polymarket, a cryptoscam-based prediction market
How is this "reporting" even real? Awful article. The interview was so bad that painting roblox in the bad light was the right and objective thing to do, yet they somehow managed to make it look biased.
I didn’t have a problem with it, given the headline I knew it was commentary on a shit show of an interview from someone who should be prepared to answer hard questions and represent a company position to the public. I’m not offended by the opinionated writing given the context.
> When asked about the “scope of the problem” of predators in the application, Baszucki came in shoulders first saying, “We think of it not necessarily just as a problem, but an opportunity as well.”
I mean… how much benefit of the doubt is one expected to give someone who runs a game for kids who sees paedophiles as an ‘opportunity’? Like, this isn’t a criminal trial, it’s a news article. There is no presumption on innocence, and the company’s past is relevant.
“Roblox CEO sees pedophiles as ‘opportunity’” would be a less biased headline that reports the actual interesting facts of the interview and would be more damaging to them in practice.
The story quotes directly from the interview. I watched the interview, and the characterization is accurate. Here's a passage:
Newton: (interjecting) You don’t think you have a problem with predators on the platform.
Baszucki: I think we’re doing an incredible job at innovating relative to the number of people on our platform and the hours, in really leaning into the future of how this is going to work.
>it's clearly trying to make the reader interpret the situation in an anti-roblox light
Yes, I would imagine the thing described as a "pedophile hellscape" should look pretty bad to the average reader. But just so I'm getting this right: the thing you're maddest about is the bad PR for Roblox?
Is Roblox now as controversial as Epstein news? Don’t mind the (Republican of course) elephant in the room. Vote for Trump. He’s our only hope. He can protect Roblox from the law.
I think this interview doesn’t require much analysis. The CEO’s own words make him look bad.
Or if you want the tl;dr, ask an LLM. I think the general sentiment is overt and simple enough that the LLM wouldn’t omit or misrepresent anything important.
I understand the justified hysteria against pedophiles grooming kids. Although it is amusing coming from a country that is reeling from the Epstein affair.
But this is not a Roblox problem it is an internet problem.
And I do not know how to solve it except more censorship and control.
The solution has been throughout the ages, content moderation and community policing. The village used to be that. We were promised the Global Village, but got the Global Content Farms.
If you can't run forums and chats because moderation is too expensive, then don't run 'em. Roblox is like the Pleasure Island in Pinocchio.
"And I do not know how to solve it except more censorship and control."
That has (almost) always been part of raising children. The important question is, who has control and with what intentions? The intention of roblox they say out in the open, bind kids to their plattform, increase their engagement (addiction) and introduce gambling as soon as legally possible. And pretadors they don't see as a problem despite independent research very much say it is. Trusting them in any way sounds like madness or lack of care. So I am not in a position yet, that I am pressured by my toddler to allow roblox, but he is hooked on minecraft now. Just singleplayer, but also no idea how it works in that universe with public servers. I am not generally against the idea, that adults can talk with kids, but random adults from the internet? No way.
I suspect what the CEO was trying to convey was that this was a "small problem" given the number of users etc, "no need to worry share holders and investors! Not a big deal!"...
But I don't think that argument really works for paedophilia. Society does not want to allow it at any scale (zero-tolerance - and rightly so), so even if it is a "small" proportion of the entire platform, it's still bad especially if they're basically only paying lip service to any protections.
This person didn't seem to really understand that though and was trying to spin it as some sort of "business is great! We're doing great! Look at all these users and engagement! Growth growth growth!" type typical hype bullshit, but totally misread the situation.
Yup. When it comes to the "FO" part of "FAFO", there are two sweet spots... either you're so piss poor and destitute you can get away with literally robbing trains [1], or you're so large and rich that fines don't matter because it's just another line on the balance sheet. Why care for society at large when you have absolutely nothing to fear?
That part about adding a prediction market into Roblox to let kids start betting is something out of a comedy skit. Unbelievable. I hope that gets used as court evidence at some point.
The effectively silent response of the CEO in respect to seriously tackling a pedophile problem was damning, it's an understandably difficult problem with bad optics.
The fully open gleeful embrace of using Roblox to groom future gambling addicts as a path to future revenue streams is so far past damning it screams walking abyss of moral self awareness.
I don't have children, but friends and family do, and I had always heard Roblox presented as kid-friendly and kid-safe. This meant I heard about someone's child playing Roblox and, thinking it was kindof an electronic construction set, ie a great learning and play tool,[0] I felt no concerns at all.
To describe this interview as a 'car crash' is almost underselling it. I feel terrified.
Most of all, what are my friends' and relatives' kids getting access to that they don't know about?
[0] Wikipedia says, 'allows users to program and play games created by themselves or other users.' That was the extent of my knowledge. It sounds great: very happy for kids to learn how to build things! Sure, I'd prefer they used Lego, but if they have to use mobiles then something where things are built and created is about as healthy as using mobile apps at a young age can be, right?
Interesting thought experiment - making a Nintendo approved version would put the finger on exactly all problems of "real" Roblox. (But strictly speaking, the logic only works in one direction "If Nintendo, then Safe". But "if not on Nintendo, then unsafe" is not strictly true but maybe good shorthand.)
The interview makes me think of Dupont and Tǝflon. "You are giving thousands of people cancer in your community."
"That's alright, think of the millions who love our products."
It may be a good enough simple test, especially for huge titles like Roblox, but I’ve worked with game developers whose titles would have been allowed by Nintendo but who decided it wasn’t worth the investment to create a port to publish for Nintendo devices - lots of games don’t release on all possible platforms for business reasons.
There are several documentaries on how Roblox explores children, relatively easy to find.
Especially the whole virtual economy where they profit from children work, without giving anything back, due to how virtual money converts back to real currencies.
"People Make Games" on YouTube made some videos about it. Recommended watching for any parent who is trying to figure out if they should allow their child on Roblox. (Spoilers, the answer is "no".)
Yeah, no. Nintendo, as the other poster said. Random stranger interaction == bad. Can’t verify age == bad.
Can only add your friends for chat? Is fine.
I feel like this same strategy is sane for adults also. Before the internet, we did fine making friends and playing games with people we actually know. So much of the awfulness of the modern online space comes from anonymous interactions with strangers. I don’t think human social connections are able to scale in the way the internet enables.
nope, in many games there's no chat and any interaction between players is only within the rules of the game. it's very safe. you cannot stalk a kid or even know its a kid.
somebody mentioned nintendo platform, see that for example
> I had always heard Roblox presented as kid-friendly and kid-safe.
I have a 12-year-old playing Roblox right now, couldn’t agree less.
Roblox is the 2025 equivalent of AOL chat rooms circa 1998. You should assume that a child playing it will encounter the worst of humanity, and if you aren’t aware of that you’re not paying attention.
> I had always heard Roblox presented as kid-friendly and kid-safe.
Yeah, no. I have kids and have walked this path over the last few years. Roblox is, as a company, your standard big org. That is, completely amoral, extracting cash in whatever ways are possible, protecting users (kids) only to the minimal extent required by law or perception that might harm business.
Very very little of their user-base are actually making games, and of those, 99.99% are getting nothing for the work they put in. That whole side of things is one part of the scam (exploit the labour of kids with the idea of making it big, but ensure the reward tier is high enough to avoid needing to cash out for nearly everyone). This is the least problematic part though.
Essentially, Roblox is the wild west internet I grew up on in the early 90’s. Sure, your friends are there, but it’s chock full of pedophiles offering candy if you just sign up to this discord channel. Free Robux might be the common lure, but they can be far more sophisticated. The sad fact that most parents don’t like to think about is that the pedo networks are large, sophisticated, and constantly, actively, hunting for any opportunity. Roblox is a platform of choice. The moderation and level of care from this company may as well be non-existent. It’s just enough to convince the public that they are doing the right thing.
Then there is the never ending stream of gambling games. The currency is Roblox, and that can be converted to cold hard cash, so there are infinite games just built around trying to addict kids and use that to extract the almighty Robux. It’s every evil trick you see with mobile game trash, just sometimes more transparent.
All in all, it’s a terrible place, but at first glance, fine. Your kid playing the popular games with their friends; it’s just like Nintendo. But wander off the happy path, just a little, and the monsters are waiting.
It's very simple: if it's a company run service that's free to access it's because it's one massive commercial break. (So is news.ycombinator.com of course).
How anyone on here does not immediately see Roblox for what it is is beyond me. They have to be one of the clearest cases around, and yet their PR apparently is strong enough you believed it was kid-friendly and kid-safe.
Kids use roblox to play the kind of games kids love, but adults hate. They are basic, repetitive and adults dont find them educational or artistic enough.
But kids love playing them.
Note that whole your comment was about assumption it is education hidden in toy, which is what you want. But, kids often just want a toy.
When I was a kid, I loved BBSs and the technicality of building a computer and the wild west that was the internet. Now that I have kids of my own, I won’t let them go near some of this stuff. It’s not because I’m worried they will do something dumb on their own but because I think tech has become predatory of all users and society in general.
The BBS scene was much more accountable. I mean, I met some weird dudes on there and consumed some weird stuff, but at the end of the day it was a local community, and everything was traced back to real people.
I tried to sign up as “Roger Rabbit”, who was 21, and therefore gain some access to a particular mov that was popular at the time. It was then that I learned two things:
- The sysop can talk to you directly!
- The sysop can see your phone number and knows Roger is that kid that signed up ages ago…
Met the sysop in real life some years later and he had thought the whole thing was pretty funny.
The point is that this was a local community; and the internet just doesn’t work like that.
1. I really wish Dreams had kept going, expanded beyond PlayStation, and tried to take the market from Roblox. They were infinitely more safety-minded with their content. It would be great to see a Roblox competitor.
2. Kotaku on mobile is a horrid experience. There’s like 20% of the screen allocated to content, the rest are ads. My god.
Readit News
The CEO was NOT prepared for the questions in this interview, quote: `I was hoping to come here and talk about fun stuff`.
It's insightful how a genuine question about hindenburg's research into Roblox's decrease in safety immediately pushed the CEO to fury starting 23:29.
Both journalists were VERY agreeable and were like trying not to pick a fight. Want to talk about the fun stuff Mr CEO? There's no fun when so many kids are being systematically harassed by evil adults in the platform.
[1] https://hindenburgresearch.com/roblox/
[2] https://thebearcave.substack.com/p/problems-at-roblox-rblx-4
It reads, to me, as so obviously slanted and opinionated against Roblox from the outset. It's not trying to portray facts, it's clearly trying to make the reader interpret the situation in an anti-roblox light, instead of letting the reader arrive there on their own.
Talk to me like an adult. Tell me what happened. That doesn't mean sugarcoating it. When I read the quotes and combine that with my existing knowledge of Roblox I can come to my own conclusions just fine.
It's honestly the same style of writing anytime Fox news reports on any democratic action, or vice versa for other rags. Except this has a nice dose of "think of the children" that further lets them pull on heartstrings.
Again, fuck Roblox and their lack of an ability to improve on these issues, but this is just trash writing and editing.
> Polymarket, a cryptoscam-based prediction market
How is this "reporting" even real? Awful article. The interview was so bad that painting roblox in the bad light was the right and objective thing to do, yet they somehow managed to make it look biased.
When you’re writing about a bad thing, you don’t have to pretend it’s good. Or even neutral. It’s okay to write so that it’s clear that it’s bad.
I mean… how much benefit of the doubt is one expected to give someone who runs a game for kids who sees paedophiles as an ‘opportunity’? Like, this isn’t a criminal trial, it’s a news article. There is no presumption on innocence, and the company’s past is relevant.
>It's not trying to portray facts
So what? It's a story about an interview.
The story quotes directly from the interview. I watched the interview, and the characterization is accurate. Here's a passage:
Newton: (interjecting) You don’t think you have a problem with predators on the platform.
Baszucki: I think we’re doing an incredible job at innovating relative to the number of people on our platform and the hours, in really leaning into the future of how this is going to work.
>it's clearly trying to make the reader interpret the situation in an anti-roblox light
Yes, I would imagine the thing described as a "pedophile hellscape" should look pretty bad to the average reader. But just so I'm getting this right: the thing you're maddest about is the bad PR for Roblox?
Deleted Comment
Is Roblox now as controversial as Epstein news? Don’t mind the (Republican of course) elephant in the room. Vote for Trump. He’s our only hope. He can protect Roblox from the law.
Or if you want the tl;dr, ask an LLM. I think the general sentiment is overt and simple enough that the LLM wouldn’t omit or misrepresent anything important.
Dead Comment
But this is not a Roblox problem it is an internet problem. And I do not know how to solve it except more censorship and control.
If you can't run forums and chats because moderation is too expensive, then don't run 'em. Roblox is like the Pleasure Island in Pinocchio.
That has (almost) always been part of raising children. The important question is, who has control and with what intentions? The intention of roblox they say out in the open, bind kids to their plattform, increase their engagement (addiction) and introduce gambling as soon as legally possible. And pretadors they don't see as a problem despite independent research very much say it is. Trusting them in any way sounds like madness or lack of care. So I am not in a position yet, that I am pressured by my toddler to allow roblox, but he is hooked on minecraft now. Just singleplayer, but also no idea how it works in that universe with public servers. I am not generally against the idea, that adults can talk with kids, but random adults from the internet? No way.
Deleted Comment
The entire tech industry in a nutshell.
But I don't think that argument really works for paedophilia. Society does not want to allow it at any scale (zero-tolerance - and rightly so), so even if it is a "small" proportion of the entire platform, it's still bad especially if they're basically only paying lip service to any protections.
This person didn't seem to really understand that though and was trying to spin it as some sort of "business is great! We're doing great! Look at all these users and engagement! Growth growth growth!" type typical hype bullshit, but totally misread the situation.
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/auburn-gresham-resident...
The fully open gleeful embrace of using Roblox to groom future gambling addicts as a path to future revenue streams is so far past damning it screams walking abyss of moral self awareness.
To describe this interview as a 'car crash' is almost underselling it. I feel terrified.
Most of all, what are my friends' and relatives' kids getting access to that they don't know about?
[0] Wikipedia says, 'allows users to program and play games created by themselves or other users.' That was the extent of my knowledge. It sounds great: very happy for kids to learn how to build things! Sure, I'd prefer they used Lego, but if they have to use mobiles then something where things are built and created is about as healthy as using mobile apps at a young age can be, right?
Nintendo would never turn away money, unless they feel it would damage their reputation as a company you can trust your children with.
If they had believed Roblox was safe, they would have 100% taken that money.
The interview makes me think of Dupont and Tǝflon. "You are giving thousands of people cancer in your community."
"That's alright, think of the millions who love our products."
"Carry on, sir."
There's Doom 3 on the Nintendo Switch... so the lines are a bit blurry.
(But yes I generally agree with your point.)
Especially the whole virtual economy where they profit from children work, without giving anything back, due to how virtual money converts back to real currencies.
If a game provides the ability for kids to build things out of blocks, those same kids will make pornographic images out of those blocks.
Mythic Quest - TTP:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_xqyIMwbew
>You give the public a shovel, they dig dicks. You give them a pen, they draw dicks. You give them some clay...
>Definitely going to sculpt dicks.
Can only add your friends for chat? Is fine.
I feel like this same strategy is sane for adults also. Before the internet, we did fine making friends and playing games with people we actually know. So much of the awfulness of the modern online space comes from anonymous interactions with strangers. I don’t think human social connections are able to scale in the way the internet enables.
somebody mentioned nintendo platform, see that for example
I have a 12-year-old playing Roblox right now, couldn’t agree less.
Roblox is the 2025 equivalent of AOL chat rooms circa 1998. You should assume that a child playing it will encounter the worst of humanity, and if you aren’t aware of that you’re not paying attention.
Yeah, no. I have kids and have walked this path over the last few years. Roblox is, as a company, your standard big org. That is, completely amoral, extracting cash in whatever ways are possible, protecting users (kids) only to the minimal extent required by law or perception that might harm business.
Very very little of their user-base are actually making games, and of those, 99.99% are getting nothing for the work they put in. That whole side of things is one part of the scam (exploit the labour of kids with the idea of making it big, but ensure the reward tier is high enough to avoid needing to cash out for nearly everyone). This is the least problematic part though.
Essentially, Roblox is the wild west internet I grew up on in the early 90’s. Sure, your friends are there, but it’s chock full of pedophiles offering candy if you just sign up to this discord channel. Free Robux might be the common lure, but they can be far more sophisticated. The sad fact that most parents don’t like to think about is that the pedo networks are large, sophisticated, and constantly, actively, hunting for any opportunity. Roblox is a platform of choice. The moderation and level of care from this company may as well be non-existent. It’s just enough to convince the public that they are doing the right thing.
Then there is the never ending stream of gambling games. The currency is Roblox, and that can be converted to cold hard cash, so there are infinite games just built around trying to addict kids and use that to extract the almighty Robux. It’s every evil trick you see with mobile game trash, just sometimes more transparent.
All in all, it’s a terrible place, but at first glance, fine. Your kid playing the popular games with their friends; it’s just like Nintendo. But wander off the happy path, just a little, and the monsters are waiting.
How anyone on here does not immediately see Roblox for what it is is beyond me. They have to be one of the clearest cases around, and yet their PR apparently is strong enough you believed it was kid-friendly and kid-safe.
But kids love playing them.
Note that whole your comment was about assumption it is education hidden in toy, which is what you want. But, kids often just want a toy.
Deleted Comment
I was literally expecting him to be in an interview while driving or something and get into a car crash...
https://youtu.be/7Qir4EEpawE
I tried to sign up as “Roger Rabbit”, who was 21, and therefore gain some access to a particular mov that was popular at the time. It was then that I learned two things:
- The sysop can talk to you directly!
- The sysop can see your phone number and knows Roger is that kid that signed up ages ago…
Met the sysop in real life some years later and he had thought the whole thing was pretty funny.
The point is that this was a local community; and the internet just doesn’t work like that.
1. I really wish Dreams had kept going, expanded beyond PlayStation, and tried to take the market from Roblox. They were infinitely more safety-minded with their content. It would be great to see a Roblox competitor.
2. Kotaku on mobile is a horrid experience. There’s like 20% of the screen allocated to content, the rest are ads. My god.