Roblox’s CEO has called the problem of predators on the platform an “opportunity”, as the company updates its safety measures with age verification checks.
As announced back in September, Roblox has expanded its age estimation technology to all users wishing to communicate with others. Back in July it introduced an AI to estimate a user’s age through video selfies, partly in response to the UK’s Online Safety Act. This is now required by all users.
Roblox is predominantly used by children and teenagers, but has been criticised for its questionable safety measures. A report last year claimed Roblox reported 13,316 instances of child exploitation. As a result, the company is taking steps to improve child safety, with AI at its core due to the scale of the platform – over the summer, for instance, hit game Steal a Brainrot had over 25 million concurrent users.
However, this year three US states have filed lawsuits against Roblox over child safety issues – that’s Louisiana, Kentucky, and Texas. Further, over 20 lawsuits accusing the company of enabling sexual exploitation have been filed in US federal court this year.
In this context, Roblox CEO David Baszucki appeared on the New York Times podcast Hard Fork, where hosts Casey Newton and Kevin Roose immediately asked him for his thoughts on “the problem of predators on Roblox”.
“We think of it not necessarily just as a problem, but an opportunity as well,” said Baszucki. “How do we allow young people to build, communicate and hang out together? How do we build the future of communication at the same time?
“At the scale we’re at, 150 million daily actives, 11 billion hours a month, like what is the best way to keep pushing this forward?”
Roblox is indeed working on safety improvements, but it’s shocking to hear the CEO of a major gaming platform call pedophilia an “opportunity” as it jeopardises the safety of children.
Indeed, throughout the interview Baszucki appears focused more on promoting technological advancements and highlighting the sheer number of users on the platform, rather than the importance of child safety.
After discussing the use of AI filters and age estimation, Baszucki was asked how confident he is these measures are working, considering it would appear predators have found little difficulty in bypassing such measures in the past.
“I don’t want to comment on it,” Baszucki replied. He added, in a response generally avoiding the question: “It’s one of the primary things we’re doing is trying to keep people on our platform. It’s an interesting industry situation. I would say, we’re not waiting for the rest of the industry. We’re like, we’re always trying to stay ahead of it.”
Baszucki was then asked outright “You don’t think you have a problem with predators on the platform?”, to which he responded: “I think we’re doing an incredible job at innovating relative to the number of people on our platform and the hours, in really leaning into the future of how this is going to work.”
Baszucki also argued the benefits of having open-ended text communication in Roblox, despite potential issues with safety. “There’s a lot of kids who find their peeps on Roblox,” he said as part of his response. “There are a lot of kids when they’re lonely or isolated actually – I’m not going to use it as an excuse or anything – but I get a lot of calls from famous parents who said, ‘Look, my kid would be dead if it were not for finding a community on a platform like Roblox to stay connected with’.”
After Baszucki mentioned the “mind-blogging” scale of the platform, the hosts brought up a report from Hindenburg Research that claimed Roblox was “compromising child safety in order to report growth to investors”. Baszucki dismissed the allegation.
“Fun,” he said. “Let’s keep going down this. And so, first off, Hindenburg is no longer in existence, correct? So, you should report on that. They went out of business for some reason.”
Eventually, in an effort to avoid further questioning, Baszucki tried to manipulate the hosts into agreeing with his views on AI success, and joked “is this a stealth interview where actually you love everything we’re doing and you’re here to stealthily support it?” He later added: “I thought we were going to be talking about fun, funny things in the industry and all of that. So I’m not frustrated, I’m just kind of figuring out how much fun time I have with you guys and how much fun time we have versus kind of this superfocus.”
Eventually the conversation turned to Polymarket, a crypto-currency prediction platform where users place bets on future events through a blockchain network.
Baszucki, it would appear, is a fan of the platform. And when jokingly asked if he would put a prediction market in Roblox – essentially allowing children to gamble – he said “we would”, but noted the need to account for different legislation around the world.
When the hosts stated this was a “horrible idea”, Baszucki replied: “Well, I actually think it’s a brilliant idea if it can be done in an educational way that’s legal. And so, imagine no free Robux, no free prizes, just a game called the Dress to Impress Predictor, where it’s not like trying to get kids’ money or anything like that. I would be a big fan of it.”
Eurogamer has contacted Roblox for further comment on the interview.
It’s a disastrous interview, following other instances from Baszucki. Back in 2024, he told Eurogamer children making money on the platform isn’t exploitation but a gift. Then, earlier this year, he told the BBC parents shouldn’t let their children play Roblox if they are “not comfortable” about their in-game safety.
