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Last month, Kentucky attorney general Russell Coleman announced the details of yet another lawsuit against Roblox over suspected pedophiles lurking on the hugely popular gaming platform.
While doing so, Coleman singled out the work of one self-described “predator hunter” who claims to have helped identify alleged abusers mixing with young gamers.
“Roblox is even trying to silence those who raised these security risks,” Coleman said. “The famous case of one of their developers, Schlep, immediately comes to mind.”
Schlep is in fact Michael, a 22-year-old Texan who has spent the last two years working with a group of other Roblox players to track down and identify people purportedly seeking to groom young children on the platform—predators like the one Schlep says allegedly groomed him a decade ago, which he says led him to try to take his own life.
In the process of attempting to out suspected groomers, Schlep—who doesn’t share his surname for privacy reasons—has amassed 2.3 million subscribers on his YouTube channel, where he highlights what he believes to be the shortcomings of Roblox’s safety features and reveals the identities of the alleged predators he has tracked down.
But on August 8, Schlep received a cease-and-desist letter from Roblox, and instantly, all of his accounts were banned. His predator hunter days were over.
“While Roblox acknowledges that 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,” the company wrote in the letter reviewed by WIRED.
Roblox’s cease-and-desist against Schlep comes amid mounting pressure against the company. Over the past four months, several states have launched high-profile legal actions alleging that the gaming platform has become a hunting ground for pedophiles preying on its youngest and most vulnerable users.
In August, Louisiana’s attorney general filed a lawsuit alleging Roblox “knowingly enabled and facilitated the systemic sexual exploitation and abuse of children.” In October, Florida attorney general James Uthmeier issued criminal subpoenas to the company to assess whether it is “aiding predators in accessing and harming children.” And earlier this month, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton sued Roblox, alleging it is “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.”
