Ryth - Roblox CEO New Response Is Terrible.

Episode Date: November 23, 2025

Roblox CEO New Response Is Terrible.

How do you think of the problem of predators on Roblox? So, fun. Let's keep going down this. I don't want to comment. I don't want to comment on it. All right, people, what's up? The Roblox CEO is completely delusional. Now, audience, if you are not aware,

the Roblox CEO, David, has recently done a brand new interview with The Times, where he does a 30-minute short interview talking about the child safety here on. Roblox. Even though the interview is a very short 38 minutes, I honestly can only wonder why it was cut short. There is definitely some nuggets of information in this interview that we cannot ignore. Now for context, why exactly the Roblox CEO is talking about child safety with the times? Roblox has been in some major controversy for the longest time now about child safety. Predators in the masses use Roblox as a way to communicate with minors all over the internet. And in the midst of this huge problem that Roblox is facing, Roblox CEO thought it was a great idea to now implement a dating system inside of a kid's video game.

And in several attempts to try and get the Roblox CEO to take down the whole dating system that they are trying to implement, the Roblox CEO is fighting tooth and nail to keep the dating aspect of Roblox a thing, while being in full knowledge of the predator problem that is on their platform. Which, honestly speaking here, you don't even need to play Roblox to understand how weird that sounds. You don't see the Minecraft platform doing this. You don't see the Pokemon platform doing this. Where their audience is predominantly children trying to implement a dating platform into their video game. So in the midst of everything, it just seems very fucking weird that Roblox is trying to do this.

There is no set standard in the video gaming industry where they're trying to implement a dating strategy or a dating system on their platform. This is a solo and independent action that Roblox CEO David is trying to do himself. It's just fucking weird. And with all the recent controversies with predators and all the situations leading up to today, this interview with David just makes everything all the much more weirder. Let's begin. Hey, Bazuki, welcome to Hart Fork. It is great to be here. Thank you. You have joined us today to talk about this new age-gating policy that Roblox is rolling out to protect kids. 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? We think of it not necessarily just as a problem, but an opportunity as well. Okay, so did we all just hear the Roblox CEO correctly? He sees predators on Roblox not just as a problem, but an opportunity. Clearly there must be earwax in my ears because there can't possibly be a sentence that is that fucking stupid. Predators on your platform is not an opportunity. It is just a problem and a big fucking problem at that.

Seriously, guys, how does this guy literally kneecap himself on the first question of the interview? How do we allow young people to build, communicate, and hang out together? How do we build the future of communication? Well, David, a pretty good place to start is to throw the dating concept in the fucking trash can. If the majority of traffic that is on, Roblox.com is people that are under the age of 18.

Actually, no scratch that. Not even under the age of 18, under 16 years old. Why was it ever a sticky note on your desk to implement this dating system? Even the top dating apps in the entire industry like Tinder, hinge, and bumble, they don't allow anybody that is under the age of 18 on their platform. So why the fuck is a gaming platform that is dominated by children trying to take on the date? Your platform is advertised as 13 plus. Why was it ever an idea to implement dating? You could improve the communication of people on Roblox by removing the dating system, also by

removing the direct messaging system, or as a matter of fact, just remove game chat altogether. That would really solve the problem. 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, 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? As you correctly know, we've just started adding that we're going to be using facial age estimation with AI to complement that. Okay, so the things that the Robloch CEO is going to implement to try and protect children is this facial recognition system. I mean, do I really need to go into the details as to why this could be such a faulty system?

The amount of times that I have seen facial recognition systems bypass AI filters is actually crazy. It has been an unreliable system for a very valid. very long time and it is not the time to be waiting for technology to improve. Now, while these facial recognition AI models may be improving over time, you don't think it wouldn't be a bad idea, just to shut down game chat on Roblox just for a period of time, so that, you know, you can say for a 100% certainty that these children are no longer going to be preyed on by adults. Because, uh, I don't know about you guys, but if one child gets saved from these absolute

freaking creeps, I think that it would be a job well done, at least in the same. until these AI models actually improve. Tell us a little bit about how this works. All users of Roblox now, if they want to communicate with others, they're going to have to submit to a face scan? That's correct. And I think long-term face scan isn't the only signal. Like mathematically, the more signals that are convoluted,

the better the accuracy and the better we can get. So we already have signals. We have behavioral signals. We have photo ID upload signals. We have user suggested age. We're complementing that with a facial age estimation signal that literally, you know, in an ephemeral way, use your phone, use your PC, scan an image, do a good AI estimation, image isn't stored, and start using that to complement all the other things we do. And we already do a pile of stuff. We have very, very good text filters.

We have very, very good, there's no image sharing. We're doing a bunch of monitoring. But adding one more signal to that can really help us make cool decisions. Okay, so once again, David is just implementing a bunch of very unreliable systems that may not prove to be very accurate. It's kind of like that whole ID thing that YouTube has recently been implementing. If you seem like the type of person that comments like a child or you watch childlike content on YouTube, your account is basically going to get flagged as a child and it's going to want you to upload your ID, which I'm sure by now that you guys have recognized that that is a very faulty system.

So I don't exactly understand where he's getting at with this whole AI implemented systems and shit. There are still ways to bypass all of these things. You're going to have to try a little bit harder than doing just that. I want to learn more about this face scanning technology. But first, I'm just struggling to understand exactly how many of your users are which ages. My impression from the outside as a non-daily active user of Roblox is that a lot of kids who are 9, 10, 11, 12 are. on the app. What is sort of the most popular age band of active users on Roblox? This is really interesting. And I think this goes to what we've been saying for a while in that maybe the last five to 10 years,

people look at Roblox and say, well, these are kind of these primitive games and everyone on the platform is pretty young. We've seen that migrate over the last five years from predominantly under 13 to now, I believe we recently said self-reported almost two-thirds over 13. Okay, so now David is self-reporting that two-thirds of Roblox's player base is above the age of 13. If two-thirds of the player base on your video game is above the age of 13, a.k.a. a lot of children. Then why was it ever an idea to implement dating onto your platform? And even then, a third of the player based on Roblox is under 13.

Roblox has 111 million active users in 2025. A third of that is 37 million. There is no rhyme or reason that you should be ever entertaining a dating system on your video game. Everything about this is fucking weird. And we can see those numbers growing and growing. Like, fastest growing segments on Roblox are 21 and up right now. Or at least people who say they're 21 and up. Well, either way, how you look at this, that is still a very concerning statistic.

If the fastest growing metric on Roblox is 21 and of, that just means there are more adults pouring into the platform that is full of children. Or if you look at the other side of the coin, it's a bunch of children saying that they are older than what they actually are. Therefore, giving these children access to filters on Roblox that would normally be restricted to actual children. Nothing about that statistic that David said is good. If that is the fastest growing statistic about your player base, you need to do something immediately.

There isn't time to wait around for the AI systems to get better and then implement it slowly over time. If there is a way to put a hard stop to it until you are 100% certain that these things cannot happen, then go ahead and do that. The child safety on a video game is much more important than fucking money. Yeah. Now, I think those numbers have a fair amount of current efficacy. We're obviously balancing those with the age estimation because we want a tighter estimation. But just looking at the size of the cohorts and the growth rates, there's a fair amount of accuracy to that.

Okay, but you're not certain. Now, granted, the systems they're going to be coming up with is never going to be 100% perfect. But I don't know about you, but I'm not exactly satisfied with the word fairly accurate. That's not enough to protect a majority of children, David. You know, when the EU rolled out some age assurance technology earlier this year, we saw a lot of kids that just took a photo of a video game character and used that to pass the age checks. How confident are you that your systems can't avoid that kind of... I think we have a lot of opportunity here in that we already have other signals that are maybe

not as reliable, but when combined are very reliable. Bro, what the fuck are you talking about? So what you're telling me is that you have a bunch of unreliable systems, but if you put them together, then it's reliable. Audience, please tell me in what you're universe that makes any fucking sense. If you have a bunch of unreliable systems that can be very easily bypassed, then you don't have a reliable system. It's like, are these really the systems you're wanting to implement to the world a bunch of unreliable systems? We're talking about child safety here. We need every little system down to the core to be good. If you have a bunch of dog shit systems and you combine it, it's just going to be a fucking megazord of dog shit. Fairly accurate

and unreliable is not what the people fucking need, bro. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. When I read these lawsuits and these investigations into the company, it does not seem like predators are having that hard of a time getting around your filters. Like, you know, you read the allegations and it's, you know, people kind of, you know,

change a few keywords, a few letters here. They're able to get what they need. So I'm curious like what's made you so confident. Yeah, I don't want to comment. I don't want to comment on it. Wow, guys, the Roblox CEO doesn't want to comment on predators talking to children on their platform. That's not fucking surprising.

Your systems are so unreliable that predators are easily able to circumvent the systems that you have in place and you don't even have a defense for it. David, you are fucking lost. We do see the chat logs of those and we can see interesting in many times ways of people trying to, I'd say many times people who are fairly sophisticated, and I'm not going to say all of them, many times kids who are over 13 who actually in any other app are not running in a filtered situation, unfortunately figuring out how to jump to some other platform where they can communicate unfiltered, where they can share images, all of it. It's one of the primary things

we're doing is trying to keep people on our platform. It's an interesting industry situation. I would say we're not waiting for the rest of the industry. We're like, we're always trying to stay ahead of it. We, on the California age appropriate design code, for example, we're like, we're already doing all of that stuff on. And the same thing with age estimation. There's, we're not doing this because of any laws that are coming. We think it's the right thing to do.

Yeah. And you also decided to make the independent move to turn your company into a dating website. The industry didn't tell you that either, but you fucking did it. Also, probably one of the worst decisions you could have made when you have absolutely no systems to protect children in place. You are a fucking moron. Yeah, I mean, you mentioned sort of kids leaving the platform, and it does become clear in this lawsuits that Roblox is kind of, you know,

where predators go to find kids, but then they do try to... I would say in the lawsuit or the press, yes, I would categorically reject the actual description of what you're saying. But yes, what you might read in the news would portray it that way. You don't think you have a problem with predators on the platform. I think we're doing an incredible job at innovating relative to the number of people on our platform and the hours in really leaning into the future of how this is going to work. This guy is so fucking good at avoiding confrontation. The question was, do you think you have a problem with predators on Roblox?

And he says, I think we are improving the communication on Roblox very well. That was such a fucking Nothing Burger PR response. And also, you really just have to appreciate that he's rejected. the idea that Roblox has a predator problem. Now listen, I get it, it would probably be a problem if the Roblox CEO himself said that there is a predator problem on Roblox. I imagine that probably wouldn't be very good for the Roblox investors, since that's the only thing he seems to fucking care about. But it's like, dude, the people that are trying to get the predators off your platform, you literally ban them from your video game. They are actively trying to

help you solve the problem and you're committing friendly fire. Nothing about this situation looks good, buddy. I can imagine saying as a parent of a slightly older child, like, I just don't want my kid playing games that allow them to chat with other people in this way. There are lots of games out there that don't have that kind of feature. Why is this so core to the way that Roblox works? Well, I would highlight that a couple things. First, there's enormous benefits for having people be able to communicate.

And we think we see those benefits. There's a lot of kids who find their peeps on Roblox. There's a lot of kids when they're lonely or isolated. Actually, I'm not going to use it as an excuse or anything. But I get a lot of calls from famous parents who said, look, my kid would be dead if it were not for finding a community on a platform like Roblox to stay connected with. Okay, so while that seems very heartwarming and very cute,

it still stands as a problem. Why does Roblox have to be the video game that steps up and takes the initiative? You are acting like Roblox is the only way that people can communicate on the internet. People find friends through video games all the time, but it doesn't mean that a Roblox has to be that game. I mean, seriously, is it really that fucking hard to make a friend in 2025 that it has to be through Roblox.com? I get it.

Some kids find their friends through Roblox, but we're also trying to prevent children from getting green. too. Yes, it's important for people to make friends, but it doesn't mean that you have to take the initiative. Because God forbid children have to move to a different video game to find a friend. Oh God. This just seems like such a bullshit excuse. Last year, activist fund and shortseller Hindenburg research came out with a report arguing, among other things, the Roblox was, quote, compromising child safety in order to report growth to investors. One of the things they pointed to was that there had been a decline in your spending on trust and safety.

You have denied that. Why? What do they have wrong? So, fun. Let's keep going down this. Ooh, is the Roblox CEO starting to get pissed off? I really do wonder what he has to say about that statistic. Because you have been really tooting your own horn about protecting children on Roblox. But you also get hit with the statistic that you are cutting the safety fund. for the game. That can't be good. So first off, Hindenburg's no longer in existence, correct?

So you should report on that. Wow, that is such a way to dodge the question. For the record, ladies and gentlemen, the website he's referring to is Hindenburgresearch.com. This is a news outlet that recently shut down, and the CEO said that he was simply tired and burnt out from running the platform. Not because of fraud, not because of any other reason. He was simply burnt out. But I wonder if David has.

done his research and knows why that platform shut down because he's so quick to point the finger at other platforms for shutting down but not actually answering the question as to why they cut their funding for children's safety um they went out of business for some reason um the other thing is have you researched that information you are such a fckin sassy mole rat seeing you're fluttering your f***ing your eyebrows at these guys like oh yeah i fucking got you there you just said the company shut down for some reason, aka you don't even know why they shut down. You haven't done your research, and here you are shifting the blame and avoiding the question all at the same time.

You are a rotten piece of shit. Say you and I, we're a system. What is the best way to review every single image going into Roblox at higher and higher quality? And say we figured out the best way to do that is to do it with better and better AI models. Would you pick that? Yeah.

Good. So you're aligning with what we did. High five. But I've also been covering social networks. Thank you for supporting, thank you for supporting our Roblox decision matrix. I also remember 15 years ago when- I'm so glad you guys are aligned with the way we won Roblox. Right. I also remember 15 years ago when Mark Zuckerberg was saying. Is this a stealth interview where actually you love everything we're doing and you're here to stealthily support it? Wow.

So David is off his fucking rocker in this clip. You could see how this guy is getting so unbelievably pissed off at the interviewers. He's just fucking cutting him off every single time that they open their mouths and trying to confront him about a situation. Audience, is this really the guy that we're trying to place our trust in in protecting child safety here on Roblox? Because it really seems that he is just completely adamant and avoiding criticism at all costs. It's almost like he doesn't actually value child safety, but instead revenue on Roblox.

Who would have fucking knew that one? We were told you wanted to come in and talk about your new age-gating technology, so, you know, we thought we'd get into it. Let me just let me just say. I totally bite what you're saying about using the best technology on the market to keep people safe. And I want to highlight, I came here because I love your podcast and came to talk about everything. So if our PR people said, let's talk about age-gating for an hour, I'm up for it. But I love your pot. I thought I came here to talk about everything.

Yeah, pretty fucking ironic that you came here to talk about everything, but you don't want to talk about fucking anything. Yeah, I'm sure that you can talk about steal a brain rod in 99 nights in the forest all fucking day long. But the real word and question at the tip of everybody's lips right now is the word predator. And as of right now, you are the only person that is truly qualified to provide an answer to those questions. which I don't know about you, motherfucker, but that's way more important than steal a fucking brain rot. I mean, look, I can tell you getting a little bit frustrated here.

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 and 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 super focus. Got it.

Okay. You are a fucking man child. We have a 62-year-old man hopping onto an interview with the New York Times talking about child safety on Roblox. And he's asking the interviewer, when are we going to start talking about more funny, fun things? You don't have the right to dictate that motherfucker. We're here talking about stuff that's way more important than funny, fun things. You can fuck right off. We are, Roblox is amazing platform right now for your kid.

And I'm happy to go deep with you. possibly non-disclose you, show you metrics, all of that, to do whatever it takes to get you over the hump. And that was the end of the interview. You could just see the fucking anger and animosity in this dude's face. I don't trust this guy one fucking bit. Anyways, audience, what do you think? Subscribe to the channel if you would like for me to make a follow-up on this situation.

With that being said, I'll catch you guys. Later.