Sinister side of Roblox

PREDATORS: DON'T NEED TO BREAK IN – THEY'RE ALREADY LOGGED IN

- Hein Kaiser

Roblox is a platform of dreams. It's a sandbox adventure cauldron with thousands of what it calls "experiences".

They're not games, but simply drawn and blocky make believe worlds in the tradition of Minecraft where players can connect, engage, buy stuff to enhance their virtual lives. It's a place where children were supposed to be able to go and explore and learn, and importantly, have fun online.

Until it wasn't anymore. Because predators and other sick mofo's, to use appropriate slang, have infiltrated the platform and turned the 70 million daily users, of which many are tweens, into a place just as dangerous as a dark alley in Hillbrow.

Now lawsuits, heartbreak and horror stories are stacking up globally. The common thread in all of them is that children were groomed, manipulated, or exploited. Roblox became, unintentionally or not, a predator's paradise.

A fake birthdate is all it takes to access teen and adult content.

Research showed that in 2023 alone, reports of child exploitation linked to Roblox numbered over 13 000 while the company's revenue passed $3.5 billion, most of it from in-game microtransactions made possible by Robux, the platform's own purchasable currency.

Research has shown that many of these predators pretend to be slightly older teenagers. They spend time together in the same games, speak the same slang, and act like the "cool older friend" every tween kind of wants or would like.