Replace October ninth, 12:18PM: Unsurprisingly, Roblox Company has mentioned that it refutes the allegations introduced by Hindenburg Analysis within the report we initially coated on this story.
In its personal assertion, Roblox Company says Hindenburg’s monetary claims are “deceptive”, and that the corporate takes content material or conduct that contravenes its pointers “extraordinarily severely”.
What’s extra, Roblox Company says the Hindenburg report’s authors “uncared for to precisely report on the corporate’s public disclosures”, and that the company “seems ahead to discussing its most up-to-date monetary outcomes” later this month.
Seems like this struggle is way from over. Unique story follows, unedited, beneath.
Unique story: A damning new report has emerged that accuses Roblox and its creators Roblox Company of fostering an “X-rated pedophile hellscape” on the platform, in addition to mendacity to buyers about engagement and extra.
The report comes courtesy of Hindenburg Analysis, and it is an extremely complete and prolonged doc backed up by an enormous quantity of analysis, in addition to conversations with former Roblox knowledge scientists and builders.
A few of its extra surprising findings embrace discovering that Roblox teams are “brazenly soliciting sexual favors and buying and selling baby pornography”, and that customers have “recognized problems with simulated rape, bare customers, and rampant in-game sexual harassment”.
Moreover, Hindenburg Analysis’s report discovered that moderation was “largely outsourced to Asian name facilities”, and that moderators had been “paid $12 a day to assessment numerous cases of kid grooming and bullying”.
What’s extra, Hindenburg says moderators have a “restricted means to maintain perpetrators off the platform completely”, suggesting maybe that Roblox Company’s determination to chop its belief and security spending earlier this 12 months was not a very sound one.
In addition to the horrifying particulars of what the corporate discovered throughout its time on Roblox (of which there are various, many extra within the full report), Hindenburg Analysis additionally says its knowledge suggests Roblox Company might be mendacity to its buyers and advertisers about its engagement and person numbers.
Roblox Company says its per-user-per-day engagement hour fee was round 2.4 hours in 2023, however Hindenburg’s report says the studio “might be massively overstating” this quantity, and that its personal analysis discovered customers had been spending simply 22 minutes or so in Roblox video games per day.
One former Roblox knowledge scientist advised Hindenburg Analysis that the platform’s precise variety of day by day energetic customers (DAUs) might be “like anyplace between 30 to twenty % decrease” than the quantity Roblox itself states.
In response to Hindenburg’s analysis, Roblox Company successfully reviews two totally different person numbers: one that features customers with a number of alternate accounts, which is for “inside enterprise choices”, and one which reductions alts, which is for buyers.
The total report is effectively value a learn; it is an exhaustively-researched have a look at simply how a lot Roblox Company could be getting away with, and since security considerations have been raised by different entities as effectively, together with investigative YouTube channel Individuals Make Video games, a lot of it’s more likely to be correct.
The report additionally seems to have precipitated Roblox shares to fall by virtually 10%, though inventory costs are likely to fluctuate so often that this won’t be a sign of long-term harm. We’ll deliver you extra on this as quickly as we get it.
