A short report published Thursday about gaming company Roblox Corp (NYSE:RBLX) focused on some serious allegations. The company has responded exclusively to Benzinga to discuss them.
What Happened: A short report from Bear Cave labeled Roblox as “the leading platform for pedophiles.”
The report highlighted the popularity of the game for kids ages 6-14.
“Roblox ex-employees, Roblox developers, Roblox award winners and Roblox users have been linked to a wide array of misconduct.”
According to the report, Roblox’s former social media manager ran a pornographic blog while employed with the company. The official Roblox Twitter account retweeted content made by pedophiles.
The report said Roblox shut down its own community forum after seeing numerous links to illegal child porn sites.
“The company has engaged in litigation and intimidation to help conceal allegations of pedophilia on the platform.”
The report linked to several cases of Roblox players being charged with crimes involving minors.
Safety was only mentioned once in Roblox’s year-end report published in January 2022, according to the report.
Bear Cave said the monitoring team Roblox uses might not be enough.
Parenting website Family Zone was cited in the short report for publishing a warning to parents about the game being used to lure curious kids.
“Roblox’s problem with pedophilia runs deep in its developer community as well,” Bear Cave said.
Related Link: Are Bulls Or Bears Winning With Roblox Stock?
Roblox Responds: Benzinga reached out to Roblox to ask for comment on the short report and the serous nature of the allegations.
“Today there was a post about Roblox that presents a wholly misleading, false and irresponsible picture of how our platform and company function and ignores 17 years of safety and civility being core to our company values,” the Roblox spokesperson said.
Roblox has working relationships with federal and international law enforcement and safety partners, according to the spokesperson.
“Since the day we were founded, we have always built a safety-first culture with industry-leading features and functionality designed to ensure our platform provides a safe and civil space for our community.”
When issues arrive concerning a developer or violating the terms of use, Roblox takes “swift and immediate action” the spokesperson added.
“We have zero tolerance for inappropriate content and behavior in our social spaces. In an effort to eliminate unsafe content, we review every single image, audio file and video before it is published.”
Roblox uses human moderation and “state-of-the-art automated machine learning technology,” the spokesperson told Benzinga.
What’s Next: Benzinga has reached out to Bear Cave founder Edwin Dorsey to ask if his research would be handed over to federal investigators.
Roblox is set to report fourth-quarter financial earnings after market close on Feb. 12.
Shares of Roblox are down 8.01% to $60.87 at the close. Shares traded as low as $59.64 on Thursday. Shares of RBLX have traded between $53.63 and $141.59 over the last 52 weeks.
