In doing so, Coleman highlighted the work of a self-described “prey hunter” who claims to have helped identify alleged abusers of young gamers.
“Roblox is also trying to silence the people who created these security risks,” Coleman said. “The famous case of Schlepp, one of their developers, immediately comes to mind.”
Schlepp is actually Michael, a 22-year-old Texan who has spent the past two years working with a group of other Roblox players to track down and identify those who allegedly wanted to groom young children on the platform — predators like Schlepp say they allegedly groomed him a decade ago, whom he says tried to take his own life.
In an attempt to weed out the shady groomers, Schlepp — who doesn’t share his surname for privacy reasons — has amassed 2.3 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, where he highlights the shortcomings of Roblox’s security features and reveals the identities of alleged predators he’s tracked down.
But on August 8, Schlepp received a cease-and-desist letter from Roblox and immediately, all of his accounts were banned. His bounty hunter days were over.
“While Roblox acknowledges that your stated intent 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 the proper channels, are actively interfering with Roblox’s established safety protocols and, critically, are putting Roblox’s users at increased risk,” the company wrote in the letter reviewed by WIRED.
Roblox’s cease-fire against Schleip comes amid growing pressure against the company. Over the past four months, several states have launched high-profile legal actions alleging that gaming platforms have become hunting grounds for pedophiles preying on their youngest and most vulnerable users.
In August, the Attorney General of Louisiana filed a lawsuit accusing Roblox of “knowingly enabling and facilitating the systemic sexual exploitation and abuse of children.” In October, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeyer issued a criminal subpoena to the company to assess whether it was “assisting predators in accessing and harming children.” And earlier this month, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Roblox, accusing it of “putting Pixel pedophiles and profits over the safety of Texas children.”
On November 18, activist groups UltraViolet and ParentsTogether Action held a virtual protest inside Roblox to deliver a petition calling on company CEO David Baszucki to “put child safety before engagement metrics”.
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