Yesterday, Hindenburg Research published a detailed report on Roblox, which lay a few damning accusations at Roblox Corporation’s feet.
The main two being that first, Roblox is flat-out lying to investors about how many people play and enjoy Roblox, allegedly reporting engagement numbers that have been inflated by 42%. And second, that the platform is “an X-rated pedophile hellscape, exposing children to grooming, pornography, violent content and extremely abusive speech.”
Roblox has responded to the report with a statement of its own, that takes a paragraph to respond to claims made about Roblox not being a safe place for kids, and then a full page’s worth of space to refute that it lies to investors.
The statement is titled “Roblox Refutes Misleading Claims in Hindenburg Report,” and immediately begins by saying that “Roblox rejects the claims made in the Hindenburg Report.”
It also adds the reminder that Hindenburg has a vested interest in Roblox being painted poorly as a short selling firm, and cites various positive financials that are not included in Hindenburg’s report because it “the positive facts simply don’t support their agenda.”
Roblox also points to how Hindenburg represented Roblox’s reporting of user engagement with a breakdown of how it defines daily active users (DAUs), and says again that Hindenburg “neglected to accurately report” on Roblox and its own public disclosures.
While Roblox is technically calling out all of Hindenburg’s claims as misleading, it’s worth noting how the statement handles its responses to the two major claims made by Hindenburg.
To start, here’s the full first paragraph that is meant to address the accusations that Roblox is not a safe place for children.
“Safety and civility have been foundational to Roblox since the company’s inception nearly two decades ago, and the company has invested heavily throughout its history in its Trust & Safety efforts. Every day, tens of millions of users of all ages have safe and positive experiences on Roblox, abiding by the company’s Community Standards.
Roblox takes any content or behavior on the platform that doesn’t abide by its standards extremely seriously, and Roblox has a robust set of proactive and preventative safety measures designed to catch and prevent malicious or harmful activity on the platform. For more information about Roblox’s safety efforts, see this most recent blog post.”
A keen reader will note that it doesn’t refute or deny the accusation that Roblox is unsafe for kids, instead it asks you to look towards the “positive experiences” that the “tens of millions of users” on Roblox have while saying it has always focused on
Just pointing people towards all of the potential good however doesn’t negate the bad, especially when ‘the bad’ goes as far as children being abducted by predators.
The statement closes by saying that Roblox will answer any further questions during its next quarterly earnings call, which is set for October 31, 2024. It’ll be interesting to see what impact Hindenburg Research’s report has on the questions posed to Roblox’s leadership, and if they actually have any answers.
Source – [Roblox]