Here’s More Evidence of Child Exploitation Rings on Roblox

Photo Credit: Roblox

Roblox has a child exploitation problem on its hands that seems impossible to moderate. Short-seller Hindenburg Research has highlighted just how much child exploitation takes place on the platform—with some sickening examples.

The initial report, “Roblox: Inflated Key Metrics for Wall Street and a Pedophile Hellscape For Kids” was released last Tuesday, which Digital Music News covered. But now researchers behind the report have shared some of the details of what they discovered. Researchers discovered at least 73 groups on Roblox that are open to all ages and solicit child sexual abuse material (CSAM). While Roblox has since deleted some of the groups since the report came out, the result is playing whack-a-mole with CSAM.

Hindenburg Research says this list is non-exhaustive, but just a small sample of the pedophile chat groups that operate inside of Roblox. Roblox has publicly ‘rejected’ these claims—but the evidence is piling up.

“Safety and civility have been foundational to Roblox since the company’s inception nearly two decades ago,” Roblox says in an official statement about the report. “Every day, tens of millions of users of all ages have safe and positive experiences on Roblox. Roblox takes any content or behavior on the platform that doesn’t abide by its standards extremely seriously, and Roblox has a robust set of proactive and preventative safety measures designed to catch and prevent malicious or harmful activity on the platform.”

Roblox says it refutes the financial claims made by Hindenburg Research in its report, but behind the scenes it quietly removed many of the games highlighted in the report. Those games include:

• ‘Escape to Epstein Island’
• ‘Beat Up People Outside of a 7/11 Simulator’
• ‘Throw Bricks at Homeless People’
• ‘Public Bathroom Simulator’

But Hindenburg Research highlights just how many more games are available. Several Public Bathroom Simulator games are available on Roblox, as is a game called ‘Escape The Freaky Diddy Party Mansion.’ All of these games are marked for kids of all ages.

Hindenburg also highlights some of the usernames that are still active on Roblox, using numbers and symbols to hide their meaning. Names like R8PMINERS for ‘rape minors’ and R8PlilKIDS for ‘rape little kids.’ The report also highlights how CSAM users who utilize Roblox to exploit children behave on the platform. Many of them speak in Morse code to avoid Roblox filters for words that traditionally hid CSAM, like calling it ‘cheese pizza.’

Hindenburg Research showcased several screenshots of Roblox profiles with morse code statements. Those statements translated read, “I’m a boy I trade nudes any age on Discord I also RP but I am unexperienced” and “BBC Bull for Snowbunnys, Condos/Trading or watch porn with me. Ask for my Discord, Snapchat, or Twitter. Use Emoji for no hash.” The porn terms referenced in that message equate to ‘big black c*ck’, while the term Snowbunny is a derogatory pornographic term for an attractive white woman.

While Hindenburg Research raises these concerns as an activist short-seller, they are not false allegations. Digital Music News has seen proof of several user accounts, games, and interactions inside Roblox intended to facilitate CSAM from minors by driving them to other platforms including Discord and Snapchat.

“Regarding the issue we raised of inflated key investor metrics, Roblox failed to respond to our allegation that for years it has been lying about the number of people on its platform, including in dozens of regulatory filings, press releases, and public appearances,” Nate Anderson, Founder of Hindenburg Research tells Digital Music News. “The company also did not address evidence showing that its ‘engagement hours’ metric is misleading and includes numerous ‘zombie hours.'”

Anderson says following the report, numerous people reached out to share their stories on the platform—either as children being exposed to illicit content and grooming or as parents of children who were exposed to CSAM.