Replace October ninth, 12:18PM: Unsurprisingly, Roblox Company has stated that it refutes the allegations introduced by Hindenburg Analysis within the report we initially lined on this story.
In its personal assertion, Roblox Company says Hindenburg’s monetary claims are “deceptive”, and that the corporate takes content material or conduct that contravenes its tips “extraordinarily severely”.
What’s extra, Roblox Company says the Hindenburg report’s authors “uncared for to precisely report on the corporate’s public disclosures”, and that the company “seems to be ahead to discussing its most up-to-date monetary outcomes” later this month.
Seems like this struggle is much from over. Authentic story follows, unedited, under.
Authentic story: A damning new report has emerged that accuses Roblox and its creators Roblox Company of fostering an “X-rated pedophile hellscape” on the platform, in addition to mendacity to buyers about engagement and extra.
The report comes courtesy of Hindenburg Analysis, and it is an extremely complete and prolonged doc backed up by an enormous quantity of analysis, in addition to conversations with former Roblox knowledge scientists and builders.
A few of its extra surprising findings embrace discovering that Roblox teams are “brazenly soliciting sexual favors and buying and selling baby pornography”, and that customers have “recognized problems with simulated rape, bare customers, and rampant in-game sexual harassment”.
Moreover, Hindenburg Analysis’s report discovered that moderation was “largely outsourced to Asian name facilities”, and that moderators have been “paid $12 a day to evaluate numerous situations of kid grooming and bullying”.
What’s extra, Hindenburg says moderators have a “restricted potential to maintain perpetrators off the platform completely”, suggesting maybe that Roblox Company’s choice to chop its belief and security spending earlier this yr was not a very sound one.
In addition to the horrifying particulars of what the corporate discovered throughout its time on Roblox (of which there are a lot of, many extra within the full report), Hindenburg Analysis additionally says its knowledge suggests Roblox Company may very well be mendacity to its buyers and advertisers about its engagement and consumer numbers.
Roblox Company says its per-user-per-day engagement hour price was round 2.4 hours in 2023, however Hindenburg’s report says the studio “may very well be massively overstating” this quantity, and that its personal analysis discovered customers have been spending simply 22 minutes or so in Roblox video games per day.
One former Roblox knowledge scientist advised Hindenburg Analysis that the platform’s precise variety of day by day energetic customers (DAUs) may very well be “like wherever between 30 to twenty % decrease” than the quantity Roblox itself states.
In response to Hindenburg’s analysis, Roblox Company successfully reviews two completely different consumer numbers: one that features customers with a number of alternate accounts, which is for “inside enterprise selections”, and one which reductions alts, which is for buyers.
The total report is effectively price a learn; it is an exhaustively-researched have a look at simply how a lot Roblox Company is likely to be getting away with, and since security considerations have been raised by different entities as effectively, together with investigative YouTube channel Individuals Make Video games, a lot of it’s more likely to be correct.
The report additionally seems to have induced Roblox shares to fall by virtually 10%, though inventory costs are inclined to fluctuate so repeatedly that this may not be a sign of long-term injury. We’ll deliver you extra on this as quickly as we get it.
