Another report, this time from Hindenburg Research, has laid claims and accusations at the feet of Roblox, hitting on the now old refrain of Roblox not doing enough to protect the children on its platform, and on a new one: that Roblox is “lying to investors, regulators, and advertisers about the number of ‘people’ on its platform.”
For those unaware, Hindenburg Research is a firm that publishes reports on public corporations it believes are acting in bad faith, while also betting that those corporations stock prices will go down following the report’s publishing.
It’s previously done this to degrees of success, but of course the key here is that the reports Hindenburg publishes aren’t just pure slander. They’re in-depth reports with pages of research meant to back-up and argue its claims.
In the case of Roblox, the report comes away with a couple of huge, major accusations. Firstly, that Roblox and its leadership are flat out lying to everyone by reporting inflated player numbers count bot accounts and alt-accounts as unique players.
Second, that it is “an X-rated pedophile hellscape, exposing children to grooming, pornography, violent content and extremely abusive speech.”
In a statement sent to Eurogamer, a spokesperson for Roblox called the report “simply misleading,” and that “We [Roblox] believe that Roblox is a safe and secure platform.”
Hindenburg’s report is the first major one in recent memory to challenge Roblox’s engagement numbers, but it’s the second major report this year to accuse the company of not doing enough to protect the millions of kids that play Roblox every day.
A report from Bloomberg this past July showed how there were more than 13,000 incidents of child exploitation reported on Roblox in 2023. It also pointed to an instance where a predator on Roblox went as far as kidnapping a young girl they met through the platform, and was even active on Roblox the day he was arrested.
At the time of that report, Roblox’s chief safety officer Matt Kaufman said that he “rejected the claim that child endangerment is widespread, or a systemic problem, on Roblox.”
Before Roblox eventually launched on PS5 and PS4, it was being blocked by PlayStation leadership due to concerns that it would “exploit” the younger members of PlayStation’s player base.
While Roblox certainly remains one of the most popular titles across gaming platforms, it’ll be curious to see if this latest report re-opens those concerns.
Source – [Hindenburg Research, Eurogamer]