- Roblox is a popular video game platform for kids. I don't let my own child use it.
- Hindenburg Research has accused Roblox of being unsafe for kids; the company rejects this.
- I downloaded Roblox to try it myself. I have some concerns.
I have an elementary school-age child who loves video games and would very much like to play Roblox. After downloading it and testing it out myself, I don't allow it.
Why? Even with "under-13" settings enabled, I didn't feel comfortable with the level of control over the kind of content I could access — and that he'd be able to access.
If you're over 30 or don't live with a tween, you might have only passingly heard of Roblox. Unlike most of the video games for Xbox or PlayStation, Roblox's games are user-generated — and there are thousands of them. Kids can build and create their own games and potentially earn money in the form of "Robux." In theory, this is a great way for them to be creative and learn a little coding.
The user-generated content also means some games are not exactly high-quality — or they appeal to kids' worst impulses (toilet humor, cartoon violence, unapproved use of intellectual property).
For example, browsing around Tuesday, I saw horror games and gun-themed games rated for "all ages." Many games appear to play fast-and-loose with intellectual property: Peppa Pig, SpongeBob, and Mickey Mouse all make very likely unauthorized appearances in various games.
There were games that weren't necessarily violent or sexual but had weird body stuff, like "Fat Race" or "Get Fat and Roll."
On Tuesday, Hindenburg Research, a short-seller, published a report accusing Roblox of inflating user metrics and deceiving investors. The company's stock fell more than 9% in the wake of the report but recouped some of its losses and ended up down 2.13% on the day.
A spokesperson for Roblox told Business Insider in a statement: "We totally reject the claims made in the report. The financial claims made by Hindenburg Research are simply misleading. The authors are, admittedly short-sellers and have an agenda irrespective of the substance of Roblox' business model and results."
The Hindenburg report also accused Roblox of "exposing children to grooming, pornography, violent content, and extremely abusive speech." Roblox disagreed, saying it's a "safe and secure platform."
Hindenburg's report wasn't the first to detail concerns about children using the platform. In July, Bloomberg published a story that it titled "Roblox's Pedophile Problem." (Roblox's chief safety officer told Bloomberg at the time that the platform didn't have an issue with child safety.)
In my exploration of the platform, I found that parents can disable the "chat" feature, which can ease some worries about children talking to adults. But this doesn't address my issues with the games' actual content, some of which dealt with sexual and violent themes.
One part of Hindenburg's report got my attention as a parent. I didn't access these games myself, but the bullets below are from Hindenburg, in the short-seller's own words:
- Users seeking sexual experiences on Roblox are so pervasive that there are thousands of Roblox sex videos on porn sites, inviting users of unknown ages to make explicit content on the platform.
- We tested out Roblox's experiences to see what else kids were being exposed to. We quickly encountered images of male genitalia and hate speech in Roblox's "school simulator" game, which had registered 28.9 million visits with no age restrictions.
- Despite the company's mission "to connect a billion users with optimism and civility", we found games such as "Beat Up Homeless Outside 7/11 Simulator", which had 1 million visits and 15,000 favorites before being removed from Roblox.
- Nonetheless, Roblox users identifying as 9 years old and up can still beat up homeless people in "Beat Up People Outside of 7/11" with over 900,000 visits.
- In the game "Beat Up The Pregnant", users hacked pregnant women to death in a Wal-Mart parking lot with machetes or killed them with frying pans or a selection of guns.
- We played "[GUNS] Work at a Hospital" where users can go on a hospital shooting rampage. The game has ~1.6 million visits and remains on the platform with no age restrictions. The game's thumbnail is a picture of a terrified pregnant woman.
A Roblox spokesperson told Business Insider: "Safety and civility have been foundational to Roblox since our inception nearly two decades ago, and we have invested heavily throughout our history in our Trust & Safety efforts.
"Every day, tens of millions of people of all ages have a safe and positive experience on Roblox, abiding by our Community Standards.
"We take any content or behavior on the platform that doesn't abide by our standards extremely seriously and we have a robust set of proactive and preventive safety measures designed to catch and prevent malicious or harmful activity on our platform."
I'm sure there are positive experiences on Roblox. I've heard from parents who feel that with some adult supervision, it's perfectly fine for their kids; some even play along with them.
But to the dismay of my 8-year-old, it's going to be a no — at least for now.