Is your child being exposed to pedophiles in the metaverse?
Researchers recently uncovered troubling data revealing what they called a disturbing landscape that exposes children to grooming and pornography in online spaces.
For years child predators have been lurking in many online marketplaces that are popular with children: Snapchat, Fortnite, and Discord are just a few of the apps that have struggled to keep teens cordoned off.
As with any of these platforms, parental guidance is the most important line of defense that children should be able to rely on.
According to recent research by Hindenburg, a massive, country-sized number of youngsters are under constant threat from child predators.
The research focused on Roblox, which was described as the second-highest-grossing app on iOS in 2020. The platform allows users to program and play games created by the community. It became highly popularized when students were forcibly contained in their homes during COVID-19 lockdowns, at a time when long-distance learning was mandatory.
As of Q2 2024, Roblox has a reported 79 million active daily users, an increase of almost 15 million from the same time in 2023, Backlinko reported.
With approximately 58% of its user base under 16 years old, that equates to a community of at least 46 million children.
Bathroom simulators
Children are exposed to grooming, pornography, violent content, and what researchers categorized as extremely abusive speech on the platform.
Researchers created accounts as if they were children and said their avatars routinely faced grooming attempts while being able to access games with sexual, violent, and pornographic content.
In a press email, Hindenburg founder Nate Anderson pointed to 73 active group pages on Roblox — available to children of all ages — that "solicit child sexual material and/or sexual experiences from minors."
At the time of this publication, at least 45 of those page remained active, with another dozen or so pages still active but having recently disabled comments and/or posts.
The active groups are, at best, disturbing.
Multiple pages refer to people who have a fetish for role-playing as skunks, while other groups refer to diaper-changing and the brand Pampers consistently.
The page "pamped studios" links to a game called Diaper Tycoon, which offers achievements for "girls pull ups" and "boys pull ups."
One group called "wedgie" warned users that the group would likely be deleted soon and directed them to another community.
Users on that page wrote public messages, visible without signing in to the platform, that included "add me if you u would obey me in ANYTHING I say."
Other posts read "[Femboys] add for heavy 'lemonade,'" and "Hello, i do roleplays and stuff."
Anderson said that Roblox has quietly removed some questionable children's games and put others under review. These included titles such as Escape To Epstein Island and Public Bathroom Simulator.
However, there are still three different Public Bathroom Simulator games available for users of “all ages:”
Roblox responds
Roblox explained in an email that it has published a response to Hindenburg's accusations, but most of the statement addresses claims of fraudulent financial statements.
Addressing the safety concerns, Roblox wrote: "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."
In a separate blog post, the company stated that its detecting and reporting systems flag just 0.0063% of its total content for policy violations surrounding bullying, hate speech, or violent extremism.
"It's no coincidence that our policies are significantly stricter than those found on social networks and user-generated content platforms and cover everything from profanity to ad standards," the company added.
Specific to users under 13, Roblox says it has filters in place to block the sharing of personal information and attempts by users to take conversations off Roblox, where "standards and moderation are less stringent."
Additionally, the company says it does not allow users to exchange images or videos through voice or text messages.
Furthermore, it said that all uploaded content (images, video, audio, 3D models, and text) goes through a comprehensive review process, including artificial intelligence augmented by humans.
Naturally, these provisions haven't been able to prevent some offenders from skirting the security measures.
An elementary school teacher in Prince George's County, Maryland, was federally indicted after messaging a 9-year-old student on Roblox.
Mark Cobb allegedly sent messages to the child on the platform in which he asked for and received sexual photos. Police said they later found more videos and images of children under 12 at his home.
The teacher was charged with nearly a dozen child sex abuse crimes, WJLA reported, including the alleged coercion and enticement of a child and possession of child pornography.
Roblox was asked to directly address this incident and whether the company could have prevented it. This article will be updated with any applicable responses.
13,000 incidents
Unfortunately, this was not the first crime of this nature with a connection to Roblox. Several predators have been arrested for enticing children by offering them the platform's virtual gaming currency, Robux.
In 2019, a Florida man was charged with 26 counts relating to child pornography and solicitation of a child for asking children ages 10-12 to send naked photos in exchange for Robux.
In 2020, a registered sex offender in Michigan was arrested for enticing an 8-year-old girl into sending him sexual content in exchange for Robux, as well. Police later found over 20 videos of the child on his iPad.
More recently, at least six men have taken their communications from Roblox offline and escalated to actual incidents of rape or kidnapping against their victims.
In 2021, a California man was charged with kidnapping and raping an 11-year-old after he communicated with the child on Roblox.
In 2022, another man drove from California to Pennsylvania to break into a 14-year-old's home. The man assaulted the young girl and was charged with assault, unlawful sexual contact, and corruption of a minor.
The same year, a 33-year-old man from Georgia kidnapped and raped a 13-year-old girl he met on Roblox; he was charged with five felonies, including statutory rape and child molestation.
Other Roblox-fueled charges in 2022 included a Florida man kidnapping and sexually assaulting a child under the age of 12 and a man in Michigan kidnapping a 14-year-old girl. The Michigan man picked up the child from school and later dropped her off at a homeless shelter.
Roblox has attempted to stem this activity by developing relationships with federal and state authorities, including directly allowing law enforcement to connect to the company's Roblox Law Enforcement Portal.
The company also says it proactively reports "potential safety threats" to the FBI.
Roblox also reports potentially harmful content to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, reporting over 13,000 incidents to the NCMEC in 2023 alone.
This vast number displays the sheer volume of potential predators Roblox is dealing with.
Hindenburg's founder told Blaze News that one of the reasons this is happening is because there isn't enough up-front screening for new users.
"Users do not need to provide any personal identifiable information to set up an account," Anderson said. "Anyone, including pedophiles, can register an account in under a minute and begin anonymously playing and chatting with children."
Anderson added that bypassing the parental controls is as easy as "self-identifying at 13+."
As with any of these platforms, parental guidance is the most important line of defense that children should be able to rely on.
It remains true, however, that an overarching conversation about child safety online, and whether or not children need access to these types of platforms, is sorely needed.
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