Roblox is ‘pedophile hellscape,’ ‘lying to investors’ about number of users: report

The scathing report, published on Tuesday, also slammed the platform for inflating its user metrics, and noted that the site has not turned a profit since going public.

“Roblox is compromising child safety in order to report growth to investors, per our interview with a former senior product designer,” the report states. “For the second quarter of 2024, in a push toward profitability, Roblox reported a 2% year-over-year decline in its trust and safety expenses.”

“Core to the problem is that Roblox’s social media features allow pedophiles to efficiently target hundreds of children, with no up-front screening to prevent them from joining the platform.”

The report that provides a 2018 case involving a 29-year-old man who was caught by police with over 175 hours of video footage of him grooming and engaging in explicit behavior with 150 minors, mostly via Roblox.

The report also calls foul on Roblox’s low-quality moderating and screening systems, which could put children in harms way. In one test by Hindenburg, accounts were successfully made under the name “Jeffrey Epstein” including screen names such as “JeffEpsteinSupporter.”

“We attempted to set up a Roblox account under the name of another notorious pedophile to see if Roblox had any up-front pedophile screening: Earl Brian Bradley was indicted on 471 charges of molesting, raping and exploiting 103 children. The username was taken, along with multiple variants like earlbrianbradley69,” they wrote.

In a simple use of the platform’s search engine, Hindenburg was able to find a group with thousands of members openly trading child pornography and “soliciting sexual acts from minors.” In all, 38 Roblox Groups, some with over 100,000 members, were identified as being hotbeds of child sexual materials. The chatrooms trading in child pornography had no age restrictions, despite Roblox’s own admission that over a fifth (21 percent) of its users are under the age of nine.

“Registered as a child, we were also able to access games like 'Escape to Epstein Island' and 'Diddy Party.' We found over 600 'Diddy' games, including 'Survive Diddy' and 'Run From Diddy Simulator,'" researchers noted. On top of this, the platform was lauded for inflating user metrics and highlighted how the company had not turned a profit since going public, with losses totaling $1.07 billion over the past 12 months.

"Our research indicates that Roblox is lying to investors, regulators, and advertisers about the number of 'people' on its platform, inflating the key metric by 25-42%+," writes Hindenburg. "We also show how engagement hours, another key metric, is inflated by an estimated 100%+."

The report also says that Roblox’s reported Daily Active Users are misleading as many accounts can be operated by a single user.