There Were More Than 13,000 Incidents Of Child Exploitation On Roblox In 2023

A new report from Bloomberg reveals that there were more than 13,000 reports made by Roblox to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) of child exploitation in 2023.

Whether or not children are safe on Roblox is a question that you’ll get a different answer to depending on who you ask. If you asked Roblox, as Bloomberg did, then you’ll get the response of Matt Kaufman, chief safety officer at Roblox who in short would likely answer ‘yes,’ and told Bloomberg he “rejected the claim that child endangerment is widespread, or a systemic problem, on Roblox.”

If you look practically anywhere else for an answer to that question, you’ll get something different. The 13,000 incidents reported by Roblox itself give a different answer.

Bloomberg’s report also includes new information from sources from within Roblox, like how Roblox allegedly didn’t have any automated systems in place to search for grooming behavior before 2022.

It should be noted that the main incident of grooming and abuse discussed in Bloomberg’s report revolves around a Roblox user who Roblox was well aware of being a danger to children on its platform.

In 2021, investigative journalist group People Make Games (PMG) published its second of two videos reporting on the widespread exploitation of children on Roblox, and also included a report on an incident where the same user identified in Bloomberg’s report, a man named Arnold Castillo who went by DoctorRofatnik on the platform, attempted to groom a young girl, age 12 at the time.

PMG directly asked Roblox about this user, and at the time Roblox provided answers that in no way displayed it had taken proper steps to ensure that Castillo wouldn’t be able to use Roblox to harm children.

Five months after PMG’s video released, Castillo abducted a young girl from Indiana. The day he was caught, Bloomberg points out, he was active on Roblox.

There’s also the topic of Roblox’s alleged exploitation of children for their work. Every game on Roblox is developed by the users, and while Roblox itself is worth billions and collectively profits off each of the games developed and published on its platform, the users making the games see little to no profits.

Earlier this year, Roblox studio head Stefano Corazza said, when asked about Roblox exploiting the work of children, “I don’t know, you can say this for a lot of things, right? Like, you can say, ‘Okay, we are exploiting, you know, child labour,’ right? Or, you can say: we are offering people anywhere in the world the capability to get a job, and even like an income.”

Following those comments, Roblox issued a statement to the different publications who reported on Corazza’s words, including PSU. We then spoke further with Roblox to see if we could get some more details about what Roblox is doing to ensure children aren’t being exploited on its platform.

The responses we got from a Roblox spokesperson failed to answer our questions, some of which were ignored entirely.

Source – [Bloomberg via VGC]