By Noah Moreno
Roblox is one of the most played games in the world, clocking in at over 70 million active players every month, including myself. One could argue that this is quite an impressive feat, considering the damage the platform has done to itself.
In August 2025, a YouTuber going by the name of Schlep was not only permanently banned from Roblox but was also issued a cease-and-desist for conducting his own sting operations against predators that were using Roblox as a means to groom and assault children. Why would Roblox take such intense action against someone who only wanted to do good for the platform?
Well, Roblox stated that Schlep’s procedures interfered with their own, essentially arguing that Schlep should leave this to the professionals over at Roblox HQ. Unfortunately, the problem here is that for years, Roblox’s moderation has been a complete and utter joke. Tons of reports get ignored by moderators each day, leading many players, like Schlep, to feel like they have to take matters into their own hands. His primary motivation stems from the fact that when he was a child, he was groomed and preyed on by a famous game developer on the site. When his mother reported the incident to Roblox, the company took no action against the groomer, letting him continue to roam free on the platform and potentially allowing him to affect the lives of many more.
Of course, the outrage over this situation was severe. On X, the hashtag #freeschlep began and made its way onto the trending page. Players and content creators from all across the world began quitting the game outright, and when the mainstream media got hold of the situation, everything dramatically escalated. As a result, Roblox Corporation lost over 12 billion dollars, and its stock plummeted.
So, what has Roblox done since then? How have they been improving child safety? Well, starting this year, all players now have to submit a selfie to AI to determine their age so they can use the chatting feature with others in their age group! Do I have to even tell you why this is such a bad idea?
As it has been for years, I believe Roblox is going to sweep this incident under the rug and just move forward like nothing ever happened. Whenever a PR incident like this occurs, they grasp at straws, doing whatever they can to simply save their image. Although you can argue that a massive company like they are can’t always prioritize the users first, this shift became more noticeable when the company went public on the stock market. No longer are updates released with the player base’s interests in mind. Instead, all updates are concerned with saving face whenever a controversy hits them.
In 2017, the forum’s system, which had existed for 12 years, was removed because of their inability to moderate it well. Out of sight, out of mind, apparently. In 2021, the feed system, which had also existed for 12 years, was removed as well for the same reason. In 2024, the comment section under player-created hats, shirts, pants, and other items, which had been in existence for 17 years, was removed entirely. If you can correctly answer why, I will give you 300 trillion dollars. Now, in 2026, the group wall system, where members in a group used to be able to interact and communicate with each other, has been completely sunset. Roblox is so incompetent with their moderation that rather than implement better systems to combat rule breakers, they simply remove the feature where the misconduct occurs, ultimately resulting in the total destruction of player interaction.
There is no doubt in my mind that Roblox is going to continue removing features until it becomes a shell of itself. Even recently, all games (or should I say, “experiences”), that have not implemented a content maturity questionnaire verifying that their game is safe for all ages, have been made private indefinitely. This update now results in millions of games being unplayable. That is, unless the creator fills out the form, which will likely never happen, as many players on Roblox are inactive and will likely never log on again to fill out a useless form. And for those who are still active on Roblox, this form is very easy to fabricate, allowing creators to continue creating inappropriate games, but if I start to discuss that, we will be here all day.
I have never seen a greater fall from grace than the descent of Roblox. Come back to this in five years when it is a total wasteland.
The Judson Mosaic 