The popularity of gaming platform “Roblox” continues to ramp up. Roblox Corporation reported that it’s nearing 100 million daily active users, most of whom are minors. The platform grossed more than $1 billion last financial quarter. Founder and CEO David Baszucki even announced the lofty goal to have 10% of the world’s gaming revenues pass through “Roblox.”
“Right now, about 2.5% of the video game market is flowing through ‘Roblox,’” Baszucki said. “For people out there that don’t know about ‘Roblox,’ it’s a place where all of the games on the platform have been made by community members.”
That business model has enriched “Roblox” investors and minted teenage millionaires, who have created ultra-popular “experiences” through in-game development tools.
“When a creator makes a game on Roblox, it runs in every language, it runs on every device,” Baszucki said. “We think it’s the future of how games are created.”
But while “Roblox” boasts more than 40 million unique experiences, many created by and for its young user base, critics allege that the platform hasn’t done enough to protect kids. “Roblox” strenuously disagrees and has recently rolled out new safety features as state and federal lawmakers are weighing new legislation to protect children online.
Baszucki just wrapped up a trip to Washington, D.C., where he met with members of Congress.
“We’re really here to help craft really good legislation for young people,” Baszucki said, “because I think everyone wants the same thing.”
Bloomberg Businessweek, among others, has reported on predators who had been on “Roblox” soliciting young children for inappropriate photos in exchange for game currency. There have been several convictions. Is that something that can still happen in “Roblox”?
“I want to highlight we’ve been innovating on safety for almost 20 years now. All text and voice on our platform has always been filtered, and there’s no image sharing on our platform. So we are introducing a suite of new innovations for safety and civility.
“First is age estimation. So we’re starting to use [artificial intelligence] to estimate how old people are on the platform. And the other is trusted connections, figuring out people you know and trust. And we’re using that actually to figure out who should talk more freely than other people. We think the combination of filtering everything, age estimation and trusted connections altogether is the future of how teens will communicate.”
Can you tell a parent listening out there that what they’ve heard has happened to young children now cannot happen anymore in “Roblox”?
“We have almost 3,000 people in our company. We all have kids playing on the platform all the time. I’ve had four kids who have grown up playing on the platform, and we’ve put it as the top priority. Ultimately, ‘Roblox’ is the safest place for anyone on the internet. Our primary job is keeping people on our platform. What we don’t want to have happen is kids jump to other platforms because on other platforms they can share images, they can catfish, they can blackmail each other.”
How do you stop that?
“One of the biggest innovations we’ve made with AI is the prevention of personal information. And one of the things we’ve done on ‘Roblox’’ is innovated, not just the simple cases like you’ve talked about: ‘Hey, what’s your [Snapchat] handle?’’ Those, of course, are blocked by our system. When certain young people are trying to jump off platform, we’re preventing even these cryptographic cases. So, you know, kids will try all kinds of interesting ways to share, for example, a Discord handle or a [Snapchat] handle or one of these others.”
How do you know if that’s working or not?
“We monitor that a lot. We monitor critical harms as well. We have a lot of metrics inside of the company. We work a lot with law enforcement as well. FBI, local law enforcement, national law enforcement. We want to make ‘Roblox’ a very dangerous place for bad actors on the platform.
We’re sitting here in Studio 43 at NPR on North Capitol Street, not far from the U.S. Capitol Building, where some in Congress are considering talking about new rules for social media, for instance, to ban accounts for kids under 13, restrict what can be recommended to teens. “Roblox,” by one measure, has four in 10 users under 13. Should these new rules apply to “Roblox”?
“I want to highlight a couple of things that we’ve done ahead of the law, really. California Age-Appropriate Design Code, for example. We supported that because we were already doing all of the things that were asked. The Take It Down Act, which just recently passed, both Senators [Amy] Klobuchar and [Ted] Cruz, a bipartisan bill, we were supporting that. COPPA 2.0, we’re a big supporter of. So we’re really here to help craft really good legislation for young people because I think everyone wants the same thing.”
If there is federal legislation placing new restrictions on social media companies, is “Roblox” arguing it is not a social media company?
“What we would argue is, we want intelligent legislation. I think what we would also argue is, take a look at what ‘Roblox’ is already doing above and beyond the law. Take a look at our history, where, from day one, we’ve been building safety and civility systems. From day one, we’ve not just filtered all of our texts for bad actors, but also for critical harms.”
“Take a look at our leading the way on age estimation. We’re not waiting for a law or for device manufacturers to start estimating age. With these recent innovations, we’ve done something that most companies aren’t doing, and that is focusing on 13 through 17, mostly in today’s social media atmosphere. Once people turn 13, they’re treated as an adult: Free text, free image sharing. We think that’s a critical age segment. So part of our innovation is really this focus on teens as well.”
You mentioned what the company has been doing since day one. As far as protecting young people, do you think the company has been successful since day one?
“I think we’ve been enormously successful in innovating on safety. It’s our top priority. It’s what we focus on. It’s where we have our biggest area of focus. It’s a top goal for the company. We literally built our safety-first system when there were three of us in our first office.”
Last year, Bloomberg Businessweek reported eight former and current employees at “Roblox” who said the company prioritizes growth over safety. How do you respond to that?
“I think that story is completely missing the point, and I think that story actually was looking at the size of our safety team. I want to push back completely on that story. We’ve innovated so much on our AI systems. We’ve just gotten continuously better and better and better. And what we have been able to do in many cases is put AI in the place of people and help people.”
Those employees at the time, current and former, are you suggesting that they were false when they told the reporter that?
“I’m not suggesting anything except saying safety is our top priority.”
____
James Perkins Mastromarino and produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Todd Mundt. Perkins Mastromarino adapted it for the web
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
Copyright 2025 WBUR
