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What is Roblox, and why does it seem to be ground zero for every creeper in the entire world?
To add, Roblox reportedly has the most daily active users, 145 million or 22% of all.
Quite a lot for a game that looks like this.
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It's a social media and gaming site ostensibly aimed at kids (think a mix of reddit and steam with Playmobil aesthetics) who's founder has a reputation of being opposed to content moderation.
The content isn't necessarily the problem, although some games may be cause for concern. The users are, and Roblox not only consistently fails to act on credible reports of pedophiles and child molesters, but also attacks anyone who tries to get creeps arrested or even publishes reports on the problem, e.g. burying Ruben Sim in frivolous litigation.
This is entirely hear-say, but from what I have heard Baszucki and Cassel's sincerely believe that no-body nor no-thing should ever be excluded from their platform and their moderation policies reflect this.
Personally I feel like regardless of whether they're the Quokkaiest Quokkas to ever Quokka, or creepers looking out for fellow creepers is largely irrelevant at this stage, the end result is the same.
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Allegedly, it has extremely lax moderation, despite constantly being caught up in child-molestation scandals.
Also sheer scale of the platform has to be a factor. I'm sure all sorts of stuff goes on on Whatsapp every day but that's downstream of it being arguably the biggest communication channel in the world rather than a particular failing
It goes further than that with Roblox, which actively banned and threatened to sue one person who was uncovering child molesters on the platform (his lawyers claim that his "investigative work has contributed to six arrests").
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Roblox is a platform for creating and hosting multiplayer minigames, with a Minecraft-like aesthetic.
The creepers are there because that's where the children are.
There's always creeps in every place. The difference between Roblox and most places is that most places ban pedophiles when they're reported.
I'd say the difference is that most large platforms aren't primarily for children.
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Sure, but the creeps are going to find far fewer children to prey on per capita in the Hearts of Iron 4 community (though I imagine they'll find plenty of weirdo commie and/or fascist femboys). Creeps prefer to congregate where they can actually creep on kids, so Roblox has way more per capita than other platforms and communities.
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I've never researched it deeply but it seems like it's Minecraft with a bunch of degenerate features bolted on. It's full of groomers because it's full of children and includes a chatbox.
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