Roblox CEO does not inspire confidence about safety on the platform in unusual interview

Today, in a podcast interview from the New York Times, the co-founder and CEO of Roblox, David Baszucki, couldn’t help but avoid the tough questions asked of him. The massively popular gaming platform has been under heavy scrutiny lately, with the State of Louisiana announcing in August that it is suing the company for a lack of safety protocols. A few days before that, YouTube creator Schlep received a cease-and-desist letter from Roblox after exposing predators on the platform in a series of To Catch A Predator-esque videos. There are reportedly many other ongoing lawsuits against the company, and today’s interview did nothing to put out those flames.

Roblox CEO in a tense interview with the New York Times about issues on the platform

To give an example of the level of responses the Roblox CEO was giving, here’s what one of the podcast hosts, Casey Newton, asked: “You don’t think you have a problem with predators on the platform?” And Baszucki responded with: “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.” Which doesn’t appear to answer the question at all.

Currently, Roblox is beginning to roll out safety measures, such as age verification, in regions that require them, such as Europe. Other companies like Steam have had to deal with the same regulations. But as Kotaku so eloquently puts it, this is “a measure that entirely thwarts all seven people who haven’t heard of a VPN.” Roblox's new safety measures generally feel like too little, too late, considering that anyone with a VPN can easily outmaneuver them..

In the interview, co-host Kevin Roose asks the Roblox CEO about a report from Hindenburg Research last year, which argued, “that Roblox was, ‘compromising child safety in order to report growth to investors.’” Emphasizing a point from the report that noted a decline in Roblox’s spending on trust and safety, which Roblox has denied. Roose asks what Hindenburg had wrong, and Baszucki responds by saying, “Fun. 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.” The CEO goes on to question whether Roose has done his research on this company. Then he eventually answers the question about the decline in spending on trust and safety by saying the company has been using AI to become more efficient and spend less on reviewing potentially harmful content than if it were still done manually.

This interview does not inspire confidence in Roblox’s ability to ensure the safety of the young people who use its platform every day. At one point in the interview, Newton says: “…look, Dave, I can tell you’re getting a little bit frustrated here.” Baszucki’s response was: “I’m actually not frustrated. I just, I’m so excited to talk—I thought we were going to be talking about fun, funny things in the industry and all that…” Overall, this is an interview worth reading or listening to if you have the time, even if you have no interest in the gaming industry; it’s not often you get to hear something as unusual from someone so high up in the industry.

Over the next few days and weeks, it will be interesting to see how this situation develops. What changes, if any, will Roblox make to better ensure safety? How will these multiple ongoing lawsuits pan out? Will age verification be required globally? Given the scale of users on Roblox, whatever the company decides will have a huge impact either way.

Roblox

August 27, 2006

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• Overview

• lawsuits and litigation
• Roblox Corporation