October 9th 2024.
A recent report has raised concerns about the safety of children on the popular gaming platform Roblox. The report also accuses the company of inflating player numbers in their financial reports. While Roblox is a highly popular game, it has also faced plenty of controversy in the past.
The online gaming platform allows children to create their own mini-games and take a percentage of the profits. However, it has faced criticism for allegedly exploiting children, leading to Turkey banning the game altogether. The new report claims that Roblox has not done enough to prevent inappropriate and illegal content from circulating on the platform, and has even found instances of grooming, child pornography, and violent content.
According to the report, the researchers created an account as a child and discovered games named after convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Sean "Diddy" Combs, who was recently charged with sex trafficking. These games include Escape To Epstein Island, Survive Diddy, and Run From Diddy Simulator. The report also found a group openly trading child abuse content and soliciting sexual acts from minors, with over 3,000 members.
Former employees also claimed that Roblox has been lying to investors, regulators, and advertisers about the number of active users on the platform. The report alleges that player numbers have been inflated by 25-42% and the amount of time spent on the platform by over 100%. It is believed that these numbers are boosted by alternative or bot accounts, which can be easily created by a single user. However, these accounts are not publicly flagged by Roblox.
The report also highlights how Roblox uses its Daily Active Users metric, which does not include users with multiple accounts. This results in higher numbers being reported to investors. A former data scientist claimed that the actual numbers would be 20-30% lower if these accounts were included. In 2022, Roblox claimed to have over 54.1 million daily active users.
To investigate further, Hindenberg Research hired a technical consultant to monitor the top 7,200 games on 2.1 million servers. Based on this data, they found that players only spent an average of 22 minutes in games per day, compared to the 2.4 average hours reported by Roblox in 2023.
A spokesperson for Roblox denied all the claims, stating that the research firm has a "short-selling" agenda. They reiterated that the platform is safe and secure and that their financial metrics are accurate. They also pointed out that they have included a Special Note Regarding Operating Metrics in their public filings, explaining how their key operating metrics are calculated.
Following the publication of the report, Roblox's share price has dropped by 4.6%. It remains to be seen if this report will have any long-term effects on the company's business.
Despite the controversy, Roblox continues to be a popular platform with a wide variety of player-created mini-games. Players can email, leave comments, follow on Twitter, and sign up for the newsletter for the latest gaming content and releases.
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