Dating is one of the many things that is forbidden on Roblox. Before, you would get a warning or even be banned for a few days for the slightest bit of inappropriate behavior. Half of the time, it wasn’t even explicit, and the moderators just targeted people for false activities. Now, the CEO of Roblox, David Baszucki, is introducing the idea of adding dating to his game.
He believes that Roblox will be the platform to solve loneliness, despite how against it he had been in the past to anything remotely close to romance.
“I think a lot of people who are too afraid to go on a real-life date might find it easier to have a virtual date to start, and then if they connect, move to the physical world,” Baszucki said on the “Tech Stuff” podcast.
This part of the game is said to be 17+ with a verifiable ID. The man in charge of a game he once moderated strictly when it came to online dating is now trying to add said thing to his platform. Not to mention, it allows minors to have contact with adults. Although 17 is the legal age of consent in many areas, it’s still not befitting to have teens associated with the community, seeing that the age is federally not seen as an adult.
There are many apps created specifically for dating that are over 18+. There should be no addition, or even an app, connected to Roblox that involves dating.
Sophomore Jorge Brown has a mixed opinion on the matter that just about rounds up everyone’s thoughts.
“I think it could benefit Roblox because it’d give them the attention they’ve wanted,” Brown said. “But at the same time, it’s going to cause even more issues with predators. This form of attention seeking, where you’re almost ruining your platform, is not ideal.”
Some have concluded that they use the 17+ title rather than 18+ to draw in minors who have strict supervision by parents or guardians. 18+ doesn’t look too fitting for a game that was originally for kids.
The Roblox team seems to have forgotten that the majority of their players are little kids. They had created their game specifically for kids and teens. Now they’ve stated that since young adults and older adults are now mainly on the platform, they try to keep kids under 13 off the platform. This is very peculiar considering that it started as a kid’s game, and now they’re making it for an older audience, when everything started going downhill for them.
On the matter of dating, the platform has already had issues with online predators for a while now. It’s very easy to hide your identity while playing, making minors more exposed to getting catfished and even groomed. This means that the new dating update could put minors and even young adults at even more risk.
Not only do potential predators already have an advantage over minors due to their hidden identity, but now the Roblox CEO has targeted a particular YouTuber by the name Schlep. Schlep is a popular predator catcher on the platform and has been successful in getting multiple predators in jail. For some reason, Roblox thought it’d be a good idea to not only ban him from the platform but also send a cease and desist to stop him from continuing his actions.
Baszucki has stated that it interfered with Roblox’s moderation and violated safety protocols, endangering other players. Roblox’s team has mentioned that they’d rather have him report the suspicious activities immediately to Roblox than to go after them himself. Which is rather ironic, knowing that Schlep started his predator-catching journey due to the moderation not dealing with reports of pedophilic behavior that happened directly to him in the past.
Schlep has even admitted to reporting any suspicious activity on Roblox to the moderators, providing evidence, and it ends with them saying they’ll take action, but never actually doing so until he makes a post about it.
They have now created a new rule right after the Schlep incident, making it so that you cannot perform vigilant activities, including going after predators independently without legal authority.
Many Roblox players and even other YouTubers have come out and spoken up about the matter. Flamingo, a YouTuber popular on the platform, has already dealt with Roblox’s terrible moderation many times and has spoken against Baszucki in support of Shlep. He has had multiple accounts banned for “inappropriate behavior or activities.” Games he’s made have also been removed because of the cover having gore or sexual content, which was falsely reported.
Roblox’s moderators seemed to have gone after him for the smallest of things while letting worse things slide. There are multiple popular games that have explicit covers to their games, or mention explicit behavior welcomed in the game. Public bathroom simulators and “friend” hangout games are the best examples of these acts.
The Louisiana attorney general and many others are now suing Roblox due to concerns that minors are being exposed to predators. Within Roblox’s response, they claimed that they took matters into their own hands when it came to any games related to Diddy. These games, despite the name choice, were typically harmless and resulted in no positive outcome against predatory behavior. They were either troll games or a way to attack and make fun of Diddy. However, games such as “friend” hangouts, hugging games, or any other roleplay games are the leading cause of grooming.
Baszucki has admitted to using AI assistance to moderate the platform. From a recent YouTube video made by Flamingo, he documented that they’ve taken action on the Bathroom games. This at first seemed like a good plan, but players have noticed a big error within the new feature. Many games that held lore were shadow-banned for having normal bathrooms that were only for display, since they had houses in them. This meant games like The Smiles Family were either taken down or parts of the map were no longer available.
As the days go by, it seems the platform will continue to go downhill. Eventually, something will have to be done, or Roblox will be done for.
