Roblox CEO insists platform is amazing for kids amidst bans in certain countries and lawsuits

In a tense interview with the New York Times, Roblox CEO David Baszucki claimed that the platform is amazing for kids despite the current backlash that the company is facing regarding child safety on Roblox, where children are being led outside the platform by predators and then taken advantage of, whether mentally or sometimes even physically.

The tense situation arose when Casey Newton, one of the hosts of Hard Fork, the podcast on which Baszucki appeared, inquired about the company’s lawsuits and investigations regarding child safety. He asked Baszucki what made him feel confident that the platform is working despite the allegations.

Baszucki said that he did not want to comment regarding the situation, but they’ve read chat logs concerning the issue. He said that the company’s main goal is to keep people on the platform. He also said that they were already on top of the California age-appropriate code and age estimation before they were told to work on it. He said that they were working on those not because of laws, but because it’s the right thing to do.

Newton continued to press the CEO, pointing out that the lawsuits have clearly shown that Roblox is where predators go to find kids. Baszucki interjected, saying that the press and news portray Roblox as such, but he “categorically rejects” the actual description.

The same host asked Baszucki whether he believes that the platform does not have a problem with predators. Baszucki replied, “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.”

Newton then asked about the ways players are able to shift to another platform, specifically Discord, another platform that was mentioned in the lawsuits. The CEO mentioned that it’s not as simple as filtering words.

Baszucki said that players have started exchanging tags and talking about external platforms “cryptographically.” Players have been substituting letters or words in order to go around Roblox’s filters.

At the end of the podcast, the other host, Kevin Roose, asked Baszucki whether Roblox would be able to fix the safety issues plaguing the platform in a year, which is also the same time his kid would turn four. The CEO replied, “I’m going to go more out of the box than that. Roblox is an amazing platform right now for your kid. And I’m happy to go deep with you, possibly nondisclose you, show you metrics, all of that, to do whatever it takes to get you over the hump.”

Roblox is currently facing lawsuits from various states, including Florida, Louisiana, and Texas. The game was also recently banned in Iraq, citing concerns regarding child safety as one of its main reasons.