TL;DR: Roblox banned YouTuber Schlep, known for exposing child predators, sparking community outrage and a petition with over 65,000 signatures demanding CEO David Baszucki’s removal. Roblox cites vigilante actions violating safety policies by impersonating children and delaying official reports, urging users to use proper reporting channels for effective investigations.
Roblox has found itself in hot water after it banned a YouTuber called “Schlep,“ who claims to have been directly involved in the arrest of at least six child predators operating on Roblox. Schlep makes videos on exposing the online predators present on the Roblox platform, and Roblox sent him a cease and desist letter as well as banned all of his Roblox accounts.
The response from the community has been nothing short of an uproar, with Roblox players now calling for the removal of Roblox CEO David Baszucki with a petition that has already attracted more than 65,000 signatures. For more details on the banning of Schlep, check out this article here.
Roblox has since responded to the uproar from the community with a new lengthy post by Roblox chief safety officer Matt Kaufman, who acknowledged the recent situation and gave more details on why Roblox bans vigilante users.
“These groups began by reporting safety concerns, commenting on news about Roblox, and challenging us to do better,” Kaufman wrote. “We appreciated this feedback and used these reports to improve our safety systems.
“More recently, vigilante activity evolved. Instead of just reporting on safety issues, vigilantes started impersonating children and actively sought to connect with adult users. Those conversations mimicked inappropriate behavior and actively encouraged other users to connect on other social media and messaging platforms-thus bypassing Roblox’s own safety systems.“
Kaufman said vigilante behavior has increased “across many accounts,” and has “created an unsafe environment and normalized behavior that is both unacceptable on Roblox and is against our Terms of Use.“
“On multiple occasions, we’ve found vigilante groups holding their reports to Roblox until after they had coordinated real-life meetups and built their own social media posts. Waiting to report to Roblox or the relevant authorities means alleged bad actors could potentially remain on the platform longer, leaving the community open to additional risk of harm,” wrote Kaufman
“Rather than taking actions that violate our policies and potentially creating additional risk, we encourage users to report issues through the official channels so we can investigate quickly and effectively. We’ve designed our reporting tools to capture details and metadata that a screenshot cannot, including object IDs, avatar IDs, and context. This additional information goes a long way toward helping us investigate reported incidents,” added Kaufman
