After sending a cease and desist letter and banning Roblox predator hunter RealSchlep, Roblox has issued a statement explaining why they ban vigilantes from the game.
Back on August 9th, Roblox user RealSchlep shared that he was sent a cease and desist letter from Roblox informing him that his “actions are a violation of Roblox policies and directly undermine Roblox’s safety efforts and, critically, are exposing our users to increased risk.”
Specifically, they claimed that he was “engaging in simulated child endangerment conversations, sharing or soliciting personally identifiable information, [and] directing users to move conversations off platform.”
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Additionally, the company stated, “While Roblox acknowledges your stated intentions may be to protect children, and while it recognizes the serious nature of online predatory behavior, your methods, including failing to immediately report suspicious activity to Roblox through proper channels, are actively interfering with Roblox’s established safety protocols and, critically, are exposing Roblox’s users to increased risk.”
It then announced it was banning him, “Accordingly, and pursuant to Roblox’s policies, Roblox will be closing your accounts. Please note that Roblox Community Standards prohibit opening new accounts to evade an enforcement action. Therefore we demand that you cease and desist from accessing the Roblox platform.”
In a video RealSchelp addressed the cease and desist letter, “I have just gotten a legal complaint from Roblox. … They have sent a cease and desist letter to me and they’ve gone ahead and banned every account I own. And you might be wondering, ‘What heinous crime did you commit to possibly deserve that?’ Well, what I did was get predators arrested on their platform. Actually, six of them. I got six predators arrested within the Roblox community. Some of them, the crimes are so heinous, I can’t even say here on TikTok or wherever this is going.”
“And the thing that is crazy about it is that Roblox is taking a more firm action against me, a person getting these people arrested, a person that law enforcement has made public statements saying that they are glad when people like me go ahead and give them information so that they can arrest these people. Roblox has sent me the cease and desist letter, not these predators. That is absolutely insane.”
He then accused Roblox of being a haven for predators, “And the other thing that’s crazy about this is Roblox itself is a predator haven. There are games on Roblox like XYZ Public Bathroom Simulator. It has about 7 million visits and the whole premise of the game is showering together with kids. That is the whole game. If you join it, you’re going to see predators. You’re going to see naked avatars. You’re going to see people peeing and all this sort of weird stuff. … There are so many predators on this platform. It is actually unreal. So it’s quite crazy to see Roblox go after me, a person trying to get predators arrested off their platform than the predators. Why? I don’t get it. I don’t understand.”
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In a blog post, Roblox’s Chief Safety Officer Matt Kaufman explained why they are removing individuals like RealSchlep from Roblox, “We have been monitoring vigilante activity on Roblox for some time. These groups began by reporting safety concerns, commenting on news about Roblox, and challenging us to do better. We appreciated this feedback and used these reports to improve our safety systems. More recently, vigilante activity evolved. Instead of just reporting on safety issues, vigilantes started impersonating children and actively sought to connect with adult users. Those conversations mimicked inappropriate behavior and actively encouraged other users to connect on other social media and messaging platforms—thus bypassing Roblox’s own safety systems.”
He added, “These were not one-off situations and we saw the behavior accelerating across many accounts. This activity created an unsafe environment and normalized behavior that is both unacceptable on Roblox and is against our Terms of Use. Our policies prohibit directing other users off Roblox to another platform through chat and having/simulating sexually explicit conversations. These are serious policy violations that risk removal from the platform.”
Schelp responded to this on X writing, “Roblox has TRIPLED down in their latest newsroom post, outrageously comparing me to ACTUAL PREDATORS because my decoys tell adults that they're children. We use the same tactics that the FBI, ICAC, and local police departments use in their own operations to catch predators.”
In two subsequent posts, he added, “Roblox CSO Matt Kaufman's latest response to the situation implies that because our decoys aren't real children, the predators that try to meet up with them aren't safety issues. "Instead of just reporting on safety issues..." They reinforce this by describing our catches as "Mimicking inappropriate behavior". If a predator is trying to meet up with who they think is a child for sex, that's not mimicking inappropriate behavior. It IS inappropriate behavior.”
“Towards the end, Roblox boasts about their ‘Trusted Flagger Program’, yet despite me asking for a direct line for nearly a year, Roblox has never contacted me in any way or offered me access to such a program,” he added. “I'm still more than happy to work directly with the company, and I would ask for nothing in return. This would be a great opportunity for Roblox to repair the damage that they've done to their reputation.”
What do you make of Roblox’s explanation and Schlep’s response?
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Well, deep down they don't want to get caught either. Will be a circus when you find out what happens behind closed doors in corporations.
KaufMANNNN ... cough.