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Roblox shares plummet 18% as child safety measures weigh on bookings
- tailscaler2026 6mo agoFunny how the world abruptly decided kids shouldn't have social interactions online right as AI chatbots took off.
- swiftcoder 6mo agoI wouldn't connect those things too closely, nor to the broader legislative efforts to ban pornography and monitor everyone's messages. Roblox has been a special hell of predatory interactions for a very long time now, and the walls may finally be coming down...
- tailscaler2026 6mo agoThis is far more reaching than just Roblox, essentially all forms of online access where kids ("kids" most often being defined 15 and under) can hangout and communicate are rapidly being restricted. Facebook, instagram, tiktok, snapchat, whatsapp, discord, roblox, fortnite, steam, etc. Obviously some companies have sketchier pasts and are feeling the pressure more, but this is a very broad trend of restricting online access and communication.
- fredoliveira 6mo agoMost of the companies you've listed have been horrible at keeping kids safe - they simply don't care. I'm all for kids communicating and having fun, but we have to actually want to create safe ways to do both.
- heavyset_go 6mo agoIt's only with AI that user created content can be graded for age appropriateness/political inconvenience as it's uploaded to platforms in real-time.
- intended 6mo agoIt’s abrupt only if you are unaware of safety challenges and issues in children’s gaming in the past decade. Moderating user generated games is a kafkaesque joke. It’s not just text, audio, or video. It’s all of those combined in an interactive environment which can include trigger conditions - and one category of games is escaping from mazes. Since it’s kids, you will end up with maps based on actual schools, combined with violence, on your mod que. The list of horrifying stuff that happens frequently is quite long, and it’s unfortunate how unaware most people seem to be about it. At least so many people wouldn’t be surprised.
- cityofdelusion 6mo agoSchool maps, takes me back, I made them back in the day myself. Fact is kids spend so much time at school and it’s their social life as well. Of course in my day it was made by kids for kids, not by grooming adults.
- lostlogin 6mo agoHave a look how Nintendo do it. Their communications between players was (is?) very limited.
- tailscaler2026 6mo agoYeah Nintendo is the same as Disney Toontown 20 years ago. It makes it basically impossible to form social bonds. My bigger point is there are increasingly very few spaces for teenagers to socialize and interact (and at least in the US, very few offline), and what sort of long-term ramifications this is going to have. If the net outcome of this is kids return to playing outside and unfettered access to parks and neighborhoods as far as their bikes will take them, I think that's great, but I suspect those will also continue to be heavily locked down.
- philipallstar 6mo agoWhat's heavily locked down?
- tailscaler2026 6mo agoHelicopter parenting trends over the past 20-30 years that extend until the kid is 18+.
- colesantiago 6mo agoGood. I am curious why does Roblox even exist? This shouldn’t even be a business, let alone a public company. I wish games can just stay games like Valve does and not grow and grow and grow into public companies.
- bluefirebrand 6mo ago> I wish games can just stay games like Valve does and not grow and grow and grow into public companies. Valve is a very interesting example to use here, I don't think of them as a game company anymore. They run Steam but I can't remember the last game they actually released?
- zeusk 6mo agoHalf life alyx and their push for openVR has made a big impact in that part of the gaming world. But yeah, their games are just as filled with lootbox, crates, skin garbage as other low effort money grabs; saving grace being its all cosmetics only (and they’re private about their financials).
- ClimaxGravely 6mo agoTechnically it's not released yet but deadlock has 75k people playing as of writing this comment. https://steamdb.info/app/1422450/charts/ https://steamdb.info/app/1422450/charts/
- darth_avocado 6mo agoInvestors are hilarious. What’s better: more investment in child safety measures so that a company remains a long term product that parents allow their children on, or no safety measures to increase profit so that parents stop letting their kids be on the platform, thereby killing long term viability of the product? Quarterly thinking is the bane of the health of corporate America.
- colechristensen 6mo agoIt's not even quarterly thinking, it's castles in the sky speculation about what the market thinks the market will react to.
- johndhi 6mo agoPossible that there aren't measures that will actually achieve long-term safety while maintaining a highly popular platform?
- skybrian 6mo agoThose profits, if they happen, will be delayed, so it means they aren't worth quite as much.
- gizmondo 6mo agoSo are you buying Roblox hand over fist? Didn't think so. It's easy to talk big, it's hard to beat the supposedly stupid, myopic market.
- darth_avocado 6mo agoActually, myopic market has provided me plenty of opportunities and has served as a great wealth building force for myself. But setting that aside, my perspective was mostly around capital allocation from investors. Yes on a personal level you can make more money by investing companies, hollowing them out for profit, and fleeing before the company fails, like a lot of PE does. But that isn’t necessarily a good thing for the company or for the investor themselves on a long enough time horizon.
- 6mo ago
- tech_hutch 6mo ago"While our aggressive push to enhance safety lowers our expectations for topline growth in 2026, it makes our platform fundamentally better and amplifies the long-term growth potential of Roblox through more effective content targeting, tailored communication experiences, and improved community sentiment," the company wrote in its letter to shareholders. Actual ghouls.
- ro_bit 6mo agoThey have to head off the investor whos going to ask "is child safety bullish?"
- dlev_pika 6mo agoMan, I watched a couple segments of their people being interviewed (Creative Director, IIRC) and I have to agree with you, actual ghouls in sheep clothing. The Internet Comment etiquette episode on Roblox Is both hilarious and so concerning. https://youtu.be/ROG5V0tSuA0?si=iHjWlBy1dE1NtlsK https://youtu.be/ROG5V0tSuA0?si=iHjWlBy1dE1NtlsK
- skybrian 6mo agoJust about anything can be claimed to maximize shareholder profits in the long term. This is an illustrative example of how it's done. Whether it actually turns out that way is another question.
- fredoliveira 6mo agoThat interview of their CEO with the NYT from last year was insane. If you've never seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpIXRgMlPo4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpIXRgMlPo4
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago> interview of their CEO with the NYT Do you have a source from the New York Times? (EDIT: Nvm.) Second EDIT: the CEO reminds me of the energy vampire from What We Do in the Shadows.
- dlev_pika 6mo agoMore safety = less sales, got it, nothing to worry about here, parents.
- Fokamul 6mo agoRoblox is open buffet for pedos for YEARS. These corporations don't give a sh... Only thing you can do is to petition your lawmakers to ban whole platform. Safety measures will always be a joke. Open chat/voice chat, "Hi, connect to my discord" -> all safety measures bypassed. But at the end of the day, this a parenting problem.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 6mo agoIt's a parenting problem and parents say they need help so... what next? HN tends to say nah, SOL, parent harder, never pass any laws you have no power because of privacy (money) or something.
- philipallstar 6mo agoIt's not harder though. You have to do things to get your kid on Roblox. You have to do nothing to not get your kid on Roblox.
- phatfish 6mo agoPeak HN childless digital nomad comment.
- hitekker 6mo agoThis is the second time in the last month that Hindenburgh's reports appear to be prophetic. Previously, they called out Backblaze before the company began harming its own product.
- JumpCrisscross 6mo agoHindenberg's 2024 report titled "Roblox: Inflated Key Metrics For Wall Street And A Pedophile Hellscape For Kids": https://hindenburgresearch.com/roblox/ https://hindenburgresearch.com/roblox/
- jorams 6mo agoAnd I assume this[1] is the reference to Backblaze? Notably not Hindenburg and more recent, but I believe there is some team overlap and there doesn't seem to be anything else. [1]: https://www.morpheus-research.com/backblaze/ https://www.morpheus-research.com/backblaze/
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago"According to the company, 73% of age-checked daily active users on Roblox were under 18, with 35% under 13 as of Jan. 31." The story under the story seems to be Roblox has lost plausible deniability. With increasing–and, in my view, inevitable–calls for age gating social media, these data mean between a third and three quarters of Roblox's users could soon be banned from monetisation or banned entirely from their platform.
- hn_throwaway_99 6mo agoDon't you have it backwards? Isn't Roblox inherently for children, hence they'd want to ban the adults?
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago> Isn't Roblox inherently for children, hence they'd want to ban the adults? Two thirds of Americans believe in "setting limits on how much time minors can spend on social media" [1]. Where we have limited polling, a similar fraction support "banning social media use for all kids under 14" [2]. Joe Camel [3] was also intended for children. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/10/31/81-of-us-adults-versus-46-of-teens-favor-parental-consent-for-minors-to-use-social-media/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/10/31/81-of-us-... [2] https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/poll-most-mass-voters-support-100056674.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/poll-most-mass-voters-su... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Camel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Camel
- throwaway5752 6mo agoYes, this reduces the TAM of companies like Roblox in the near term. Countries should collectively regulate how much big tech can exploit minors. Minors cannot go to casinos, and the underlying gamification techniques for creating addiction are the same. Children are not some demographic to maximize for profits. If they aren't educated and raised correctly, a society collapses in less than 40 years. If one is a psychopath and needs an analogy rather than "harming childrens' mental development for profit is morally and ethically evil": this is essential the same as setting catch quotas on fisheries, to maximize long term value at the expense of short term profit.
- zetanor 6mo agoThe market valuates Roblox child abuse at almost a billion dollars?
- brcmthrowaway 6mo agoThere was a time 5-10 years ago where Roblox was going on a ex-FAANG hiring spree and folks on Blind were pulling in insane salaries (probably still pay amazing).. but to work for fucking Roblox. Truly a "these are not my people" moment.
- Jweb_Guru 6mo agoGod forbid people want to work on video game stuff instead of for an advertising company.
- lostlogin 6mo agoYeah, but for Roblox? That’s child gambling and child grooming.
- BigTTYGothGF 6mo agoMight still be a step up from Facebook.
- Aeolun 6mo agoRoblox made a platform. The people on that platform used it for making gambling and child grooming. I guess the worst you can say for roblox is that it incentivizes that with the way they’re selling Robux, but that’s also the only way their platform can work.
- lostlogin 6mo agoI don’t think that’s a defence in the slightest.
- pamcake 6mo agoVideo games is one thing. Roblox is something else.
- jjmarr 6mo agoThe "child safety measures" was dividing the playerbase into age groups and banning almost all communication between them. The age groups are under 9, 9–12, 13–15, 16–17, 18–20, and 21+. Users only speak to other players ±1 age group, so 18-20 can speak to 16-17 or 21+. The problem is almost every game on Roblox is social and the matchmaking isn't mature enough to ensure players in a lobby can all communicate. My favourite is "generic roleplay gaem". The main fun is inciting riots against the leader or forming alliances to do raids. I could join a game and within half-an-hour I'd be engaged in drama, since Roblox incentivizes ephemeral lobbies with random people meaning I don't need a lengthy time commitment to form an alliance. But I can no longer do that because I am 25 years old and the lobbies are too young. Heck, I'd rather play that game with only other users over 18+ because I could swear and be more toxic. But the matchmaking system literally makes that impossible. I've had the same Roblox account for 18 years and have spent tens of thousands of Robux on the platform. I let Roblox scan my passport even, so they know who I am. Even though I own nearly 1000 Steam games, Roblox still filled my desire for low-commitment social games I could jump into on my phone or computer if I had a few hours of downtime. Now it is effectively unplayable. I'm in favour of child safety. But these measures were implemented poorly and needed to be paired with matchmaking to not destroy the platform.
- throwaway91723 6mo ago[dead]
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago> these measures were implemented poorly and needed to be paired with matchmaking to not destroy the platform I see these as orthogonal issues. Your mathmaking gripe sounds legitimate, and is probably driven by Roblox's low 21+ user numbers. That would be expected to change over time. At the same time, I'm not seeing a great argument for why these folks (EDIT: Roblox) should continue to have unfettered access to kids under 14.
- 6mo ago
- bastard_op 6mo agoRoblox has long been known as a pedo farm, and talks with friends actually with kids all know it, so I don't know how it's still even around.
- htx80nerd 6mo ago[flagged]
- xboxnolifes 6mo agoBecause any social hotspot for children is going to be a pedophile farm. Its around because its popular, which is the same reason its a pedo farm.
- a2128 6mo agoRoblox's introduction of mandatory face verification to chat is one of the most biggest examples of how people in tech can get so deep in trying to create a solid technical solution, that they completely miss the human problems it creates. You could create the best possible face verification system that processes everything completely locally, uses CPU security features to make sure the photos stay exactly where they're supposed to, etc etc. You could design the best possible chat age segregation system that makes sure nobody can ever get groomed over chat again. You can get so deep that you forget you're forcing children to take pictures of themselves, and fail to consider the wider effects this will have on the safety of those kids in general. How's Jimmy supposed to know that taking a picture of himself for roblox.com is okay, but taking a picture for somescamwebsite that he found in a Roblox game is absolutely not okay? This solution creates a much worse problem. Sane parenting would tell kids to never take pictures of themselves or put it on any website, but now we're clearly shifting the role of parenting to tech companies and we are going to see bad consequences of this.
- irishcoffee 6mo agoIf 11-year-old Jimmy is anything like I was a lifetime ago (in terms of understanding tech), he knows how to ask an LLM to take his picture and make him look like he's 18... and none of it matters anyways.
- skybrian 6mo agoIdeally Roblox would be able to rely on the platform to tell them whether the device is child-locked or not. It would be up to parents to make sure their kids only have access to devices with appropriate locks turned on. Parents could rely on vendors to make devices where it’s easy to set appropriate locks, and rely on stores not to sell unlocked devices to kids. But we don’t live in that world. Also, the are trying to prevent adults from pretending to be kids, which is much harder than preventing kids from accessing adult sites.
- Aurornis 6mo agoThis is an interesting comment because there’s a parallel effort to shift age verification to devices, which draws a lot of hate here.
- andrepd 6mo agoChild well-being being inversely correlated with stock price is very much a nice summary of the times we live in.
- Aeolun 6mo agoI think human wellbeing has been inverted with stock price basically since stocks were introduced.
- themafia 6mo agoPrior to stocks we had feudal lords created out of vast private land holdings. Stocks at least abstract ownership out into a more democratic mechanism. The notion is sound but the current implementation is incomplete, for the same reason the prior innovations were, the initial uninformed creation become too easily corrupted.
- hokumguru 6mo agoRegardless of Roblox’s continued failings I strongly believe that there needs to be a safe, scrutinized, and open online platform for children to socialize in meaningful ways. As much as we would rather discontinue social media for minors the fact remains that for millions of Americans the internet provides a primary means of social fulfillment, especially in gaming, which is far more popular among youth demographics. I think Roblox themselves have a chance in the coming years to prove themselves this space. They have one of the greatest chances to create this space precisely due to the intense scrutiny they’re currently under. It’s honestly that or fold basically. And if it’s not Roblox, what other platform do we trust our children on? There have absolutely been growing pains since I regularly played games on the platform in ‘09-‘13 but I also credit Roblox extremely heavily in my journey as a software engineer making social games for me and my friends. It fostered that curiosity in a frankly healthy way for a young nerd that has eventually culminated in a job at FAANG and great academic fulfillment. I hope they can continue to provide this for millions of more children, just in a safer and healthier way.
- themafia 6mo ago> and open online platform for children to socialize in meaningful ways. What benefits will this bring over an offline platform for children to socialize in? I'm not denying that there would be any, but, if we determine what those are directly, perhaps we can find better mechanisms than bespoke "social media" platforms to deliver them. > I think Roblox themselves have a chance It'd probably be a good start to subtract things like "virtual currency" from whatever implementation is imagined.
- hokumguru 6mo agoChildren were online long before Roblox. They’ll be online regardless, let’s give them an actually safe space. I’d argue their platform is still better than Xbox live or msn chats Fully agree on the currency aspect. I feel like since they’ve IPOd the company has taken more of a playing focus in where it was previously building and creating.
- Aaronsood 6mo agoRoblox is genuinely digging its own grave, the brainrot games made a huge chunk of its playerbase leave, then after the schlepp situation, added all that age verification stuff, and then most of the kids left too. Now there is just a fraction of its original players left playing.