CEO of Roblox Says Child Predators on the Platform Are an "Opportunity"
Roblox CEO and co-founder David Baszucki says his game's longstanding issues with child predators are an opportunity for growth.
Newton: I mean, look, Dave, I can tell you’re getting a little bit frustrated here.
Baszucki: I’m actually not frustrated. I just, I’m so excited to talk — I thought we were going to be talking about fun, funny things in the industry and all of that. So I’m not frustrated, I’m just kind of figuring out how much fun time I have with you guys and how much fun time we have versus kind of this superfocus. But I’m happy to talk about whatever you guys want.
"I don't want to talk about our predator problem, I want to talk about getting kids on our platform"
Guy sounds like a predator exploiting kids himself.
Silicon Valley has always been pioneered by rapists. SV has always been about breaking boundaries and coercing consent
The company itself preys on children. The largest developers prey on children. It's not always the body that predators are after. It often is the vulnerability and naivety.
Their whole business model is exploiting children.
Roblox was a great idea from an acedemic lab on child education and STEM, but as soon as it was successful it went off the rails.
Maybe I've already had an aneurysm and this reality is merely a terrible delusion borne of that.
Reality is that ethics are subjective restrictions we place on ourselves and each other. When these restrictions aren't maintained, the choice of harming another for one's self benefit loses its inherent consequencial dread.
Those who don't fear the results of their actions cannot weigh the possible risks involved. And when there are no risks seen, only the possible benefits remain.
... to make money.
"we profit off of child labor and paedophiles. no need to hide it baybee"
Simulated underage children! We call them honey pots… you can add one to your kids account for an extra $50 a month.
How many robux is that?
The problem we provide for free, the solution however is $50/month.
Capitalism in a nutshell
A large community of child predators is a great opportunity - to expand roblox into a prestige networking site for the republican party.
Ignorance is letting your kid play roblox. Scumbag platform.
ok, that's enough Capitalism, i think
Only a businessman could look at literally anything at all and call it an opportunity.
Whaaaat
Capitalism man the game doesn't stop for some raped kids...
I was going to say just that. That system is beyond fucked up. It's just unethical.
Lordy, I hate sensationalized editorial headlines. This is the actual quote.
Asked by co-host Casey Newton how he thinks about the issue of child predators on his platform, the Roblox CEO said the issue wasn’t just a “problem, but an opportunity as well.”
This is standard corpo/PR speak when addressing an issue, you refer to it as an "opportunity", there's an implied "to solve/address".
This did not make it better.
Contrarians don't understand the difference between disagreeing and having a point.
Reminds me of an old joke...
Man goes to his boss and says "can we talk. I have a problem!"
His boss gets mad and replies "I don't want to hear about your problems. We are an opportunity based company. We don't have problems we have opportunities to improve. Do you understand?"
The man thinks and then replies "yeah, I get it."
"great now tell me what you wanted to talk about, and you better not use the word problem!"
"well.. Based on what you said, I have a huge drinking opportunity"
Ludicrously bad wording, a CEO really should have realized that there's situations corpo speak isn't the right choice
Unfortunately, CEOs are really only good for one thing. Saying nothing by spouting a bunch of corporate jargon.
Full interview question and answer, just for fullness of context:
Newton: You have joined us today to talk about this new age-gating policy that Roblox is rolling out to protect kids. And I think we should start by just talking about the scope of the problem here. What has led you to this point? And how do you think of the problem of predators on Roblox?
Baszucki: We think of it not necessarily just as a problem, but an opportunity as well. How do we allow young people to build, communicate and hang out together? How do we build the future of communication at the same time? So we, you know, we’ve been, I think in a good way, working on this ever since we started. And when we were — this was almost 18 or 19 years ago — when we first launched the company and we had just four of us sitting in a room, we were literally the moderators, like we would rotate all the time. And so fast-forward to where we are today, it’s just like every week, what is the latest tech? At the scale we’re at, 150 million daily actives, 11 billion hours a month, like what is the best way to keep pushing this forward? And as you correctly note, we’ve just started adding that we’re going to be using facial age estimation with A.I. to complement that.
Am I the only one that's reading that over and over trying to find where he actually clarifies about it being an "opportunity"? It seems as though he just says that and starts talking nonsense.
Only when paired with precise geo location and cruise missiles.
Really leans into CEO is just a serial killer in a different setting.
Can we not be slandering the zodiac killer?
Their greed has messed up their perceptions. Just disgusting.
Of course you do. That "think of the children!" is only narrative you'd use to advance that agenda of yours, which usually involve eroding civil liberty.
An opportunity to get cozy with the president, to have paid accounts without moderation features
Sue them out of existence. They are not going to stop.
PaaS, pedo as a service?
This guy has a certificate in SWOT analysis and he is gonna use it
In other words, Baszucki claims that the reason for the dip in safety spending is directly linked to the adoption of AI systems. One of those moderation systems, announced over the summer, was supposedly designed to detect “early signs” of child endangerment. However, under Baszucki’s social media posts about the tool, you can find dozens of complaints that the AI is failing to stop harmful content.
If I ever have kids, they'll find that every network at home will block off roblox entirely.
You want to go back and reword that?
More tech bros making bank from crimes. Lovely
He's already a paedo himself, so this isn't surprising. He looks young, but I think there's a huge reason for it.
An opportunity it's, like Dexter? But instead of murdering murderers he rapes child rapists?
Almost!
In bazuski's defense, he's a moron.
Opportunity to put them in the morgue where they belong, right?
What a clickbait headline
He literally said it. And then dodged the followup questions multiple times.
He didn't answer how it's click bait, he just downvoted you and me. I think he's upset that child predators can't get away with things.
How is it click bait?
Edit: You just downvoted me and didn't answer, so you have none and just like talking.
Not the person you asked, but I think it's clickbait because it presents the word without context in such a way as to provoke an emotional response. It sounds like maybe he thinks he can make money off of child predators. The subheading "Who said CEOs don't have a sense of humor?" also implies that he said it jokingly.
You can read the original interview here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/podcasts/hardfork-roblox-child-safety.html
I think "CEO of Roblox downplays problem of child predators on the platform" or "CEO of Roblox dodges questions of child safety" very accurately describe how the interview went and are not misleading. (The original headline is kid gloves bullshit, and I'm not happy about that either.)
e: Realized the Futurism article literally says "Baszucki didn’t downplay the issue of child exploitation as some might expect." He did absolutely did at multiple points in the interview.