We Asked Roblox’s C.E.O. About Child Safety. It Got Tense. | EP 163

Summary

This episode features an intense interview with Roblox co-founder and CEO David Baszucki about the gaming platform’s child safety challenges. With more than 150 million daily active users — nearly 40% of whom are under 13 — Roblox has attracted scrutiny over predators using the platform to target children. Three states have filed lawsuits, Florida has launched an investigation, and more than 20 federal lawsuits accuse Roblox of enabling sexual exploitation.

Baszucki defends the company’s track record, pointing to new AI-powered facial age estimation technology that will sort users into age bands and restrict who can communicate with whom. The interview becomes visibly tense as Kevin and Casey press him on why it took 20 years for the company to implement basic age-gating for its chat features, and whether the company’s push for growth came at the cost of child safety. Baszucki repeatedly pivots to describing the “opportunity” rather than the “problem,” leading to some of the most uncomfortable exchanges in Hard Fork history. The episode ends with an unexpected detour into prediction markets on Roblox.

Highlights

”You Don’t Think You Have a Problem with Predators?”

yt-dlp --download-sections "*0:14-0:28" "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpIXRgMlPo4" --force-keyframes-at-cuts --merge-output-format mp4 -o "XpIXRgMlPo4-0m14s.mp4"

“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.” — Casey Newton and David Baszucki, 0:14

”The Scale We’re At Is Absolutely Mindboggling”

yt-dlp --download-sections "*12:10-13:10" "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpIXRgMlPo4" --force-keyframes-at-cuts --merge-output-format mp4 -o "XpIXRgMlPo4-12m10s.mp4"

“The scale we’re at is absolutely mindboggling right now. 150 million people every day. We have experiences on our platform which have 25 million people playing at the same time. Traditionally in the gaming market, the record prior to that was 11 or 12 for all of Fortnite.” — David Baszucki, 12:10

”Is This a Stealth Interview Where You Love Everything We’re Doing?”

yt-dlp --download-sections "*24:10-25:10" "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpIXRgMlPo4" --force-keyframes-at-cuts --merge-output-format mp4 -o "XpIXRgMlPo4-24m10s.mp4"

“Is this a stealth interview where actually you love everything we’re doing and you’re here to stealthily support it? We were told you wanted to come in and talk about your new age gating technology.” — David Baszucki deflecting tough questions, 24:10

”47.3 Million People Concurrently Playing”

yt-dlp --download-sections "*3:37-4:22" "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpIXRgMlPo4" --force-keyframes-at-cuts --merge-output-format mp4 -o "XpIXRgMlPo4-3m37s.mp4"

“There was one day when 47.3 million people were concurrently playing games on the platform. And that’s just like a huge number of young people. This is becoming kind of a de facto gathering place for young people especially in this country.” — Casey Newton and Kevin Roose, 3:37

”Will You Fix the Problems by the Time My Kid Is Old Enough?”

yt-dlp --download-sections "*35:50-37:00" "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpIXRgMlPo4" --force-keyframes-at-cuts --merge-output-format mp4 -o "XpIXRgMlPo4-35m50s.mp4"

“My kid right now is about 3 and a half years old. Will you fix the problems with safety on your platform by the time that my kid is old enough to ask me that question? I’m gonna go more out of the box in that Roblox is an amazing platform right now for your kid.” — Kevin Roose and David Baszucki, 35:50

Key Points

• 150 Million Daily Users (3:55) - Roblox has 150 million daily active users, with nearly 40% under age 13
• Record-Breaking Concurrent Players (3:25) - A single game “Steal a Brain Rot” hit 25.4 million concurrent players; 47.3 million total concurrent one day
• Three State Lawsuits (5:16) - Louisiana, Kentucky, and Texas filed lawsuits; Florida launched an investigation; 20+ federal lawsuits for enabling exploitation
• Facial Age Estimation (5:49) - New feature requires face scans to chat, complementing behavioral signals and photo ID uploads
• Any Adult Could Contact Any Child (5:57) - For most of Roblox’s history, any anonymous adult could directly message any minor on the platform
• Predators Pay in Robux (5:00) - Predators use Roblox’s virtual currency to entice children into compromising positions
• Founding Story (8:00) - Baszucki says safety was a priority from day one, with the four founders becoming moderators within a month of launch
• Text Filter Legacy (10:30) - Roblox historically relied on text filtering as its primary safety mechanism, leading to the famous “hashtag hashtag hashtag” memes
• Cryptographic Filter Evasion (12:00) - Baszucki describes sophisticated users encoding messages using letter patterns to evade filters
• Hindenburg Report (20:00) - Activist short-seller Hindenburg accused Roblox of compromising child safety for growth; Baszucki counters they shifted to more effective AI
• Tense Exchange (24:10) - Baszucki asks if hosts are conducting a “stealth” supportive interview, creating an awkward moment
• Screen Time Views (30:00) - Baszucki distinguishes between solo short-form video consumption and group gaming as different types of screen time
• Prediction Markets on Roblox (33:00) - Baszucki expresses enthusiasm for putting prediction markets inside Roblox, calling it “a brilliant idea if it can be done in an educational way”
• Platform Responsibility (25:00) - Baszucki frames the 6-12 age zone as “an incredible opportunity” rather than a liability

Mentions

Companies

• Roblox (0:00) - Gaming platform with 150M daily users facing child safety scrutiny
• Hindenburg Research (20:00) - Short-seller that published critical report on Roblox safety; no longer in existence
• Discord (11:30) - Platform predators try to move children to from Roblox
• Fortnite (12:30) - Previous concurrent player record of 11-12 million, dwarfed by Roblox
• Minecraft (12:45) - Referenced when it hit 1 million users, compared to Roblox’s current scale
• Polymarket (33:00) - Prediction market platform that Baszucki is a fan of

Products & Technologies

• Facial Age Estimation (5:49) - AI-powered face scanning for age verification on Roblox
• Steal a Brain Rot (3:25) - Viral Roblox game that broke concurrent player records
• Grow a Garden (3:35) - Another recent hit game on Roblox
• Robux (5:00) - Roblox’s virtual currency used by predators to lure children
• California Age Appropriate Design Code (11:00) - Regulation Baszucki says Roblox already exceeds

People

• David Baszucki (7:51) - Co-founder and CEO of Roblox, interviewed about child safety
• Eli Tan (5:30) - New York Times reporter who covered federal lawsuits against Roblox
• Mark Zuckerberg (24:00) - Referenced for his 2010s promises about AI solving content moderation

Surprising Quotes

“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.’” — David Baszucki, 14:00

“I’m so glad you guys are aligned with the way we run Roblox. Thank you for supporting our Roblox decision matrix.” — David Baszucki, sarcastically after Casey agreed with a premise, 22:00

“We would have to be — every single country in the world has different legislation around loot boxes and kid gambling. And so we would have to be… Oh, to be clear, I think this is a horrible idea. I just was interested if you were thinking about it.” — David Baszucki and Kevin Roose on prediction markets in Roblox, 34:00

“Start them young. That’s what I always say when it comes to gambling.” — Kevin Roose, joking about prediction markets for kids, 34:30

Transcript

0:00 You’re confident that the technology has gotten good enough that you can use it to do moderation at a platform of Roblox’s scale. The scale we’re at is absolutely mindboggling. 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.

0:33 Casey. Yeah. You were in my dream last night. I was. Yes. What did I do? Now, normally I don’t have sort of lucid vivid dreams, but I’ve been taking melatonin, which will mess you right up. And last night, I had a dream that starred you in a central role. This dream involved you and me deciding to go in a rocket together into outer space. And for whatever reason, this was like a big national event and all of the living presidents had gathered to watch it.

1:10 No, it was just the two of us. And then at the last minute, I chickened out. And so you went up on the rocket by yourself. And then here comes the sad part. The rocket exploded. And the punchline of this dream right before I woke up was that George W. Bush turned to me and said, “Hard Fork — now that’s a good podcast.” And that’s when I woke up.

2:08 I’m Kevin Roose, tech columnist at the New York Times. I’m Casey Newton from Platformer, and this is Hard Fork. This week, Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki on how the company’s responding to widespread allegations that it has become unsafe for children and what level of responsibility the gaming platform has to protect them.

2:24 All right, Kevin. Well, now we’d like to turn our attention to a really serious topic and that is what has been happening on Roblox, the very popular online gaming platform. Before we get into that though, how much would you say you know about Roblox?

3:00 Roblox was around for a long time before it got big. This is a company that was founded 20 years ago. The original product launched in February 2006, but its growth really accelerated during the pandemic when millions of kids turned to Roblox. They’ve had a couple of viral hit games recently — Steal a Brain Rot broke a record for concurrent players at 25.4 million. There was one day when 47.3 million people were concurrently playing games on the platform.

3:55 Today they have more than 150 million daily active users. Unlike Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Discord, which required you to be at least 13 to join, anyone of any age can join Roblox for free. Just shy of 40% of the platform’s users are under 13.

4:22 Recently they have been in the news a lot for a number of pretty troubling child safety problems. I’ve read stories about predators who are using Roblox to link up with young children, maybe lure them to another platform where they can ask them for pictures or engage them in manipulative grooming behavior. Often these same predators are paying children in Robux, the currency of the platform.

5:16 Three states have filed lawsuits against Roblox over child safety issues this year: Louisiana, Kentucky, and Texas. Florida’s attorney general launched an investigation. And right now there are more than 20 lawsuits accusing Roblox of enabling sexual exploitation filed in federal court this year.

5:49 This week they announced their latest feature which is requiring users to undergo age estimation if they want to chat. So if you want to chat with somebody, you’re going to have to scan your face. Prior to this though, for many, many years, any adult has been able to contact any child on Roblox.

7:51 Dave Baszucki, welcome to Hard Fork. You have joined us today to talk about this new age-gating policy. 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. How do we allow young people to build, communicate, and hang out together?

9:00 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 long-term face scan isn’t the only signal. Mathematically the more signals that are convoluted the better the accuracy. We already have behavioral signals, photo ID upload signals, user suggested age.

10:30 For most of Roblox’s history, any anonymous adult could talk to any minor. Why was that the case? We’ve always from day one really focused very heavily on quality of text filtering. One of the biggest complaints on Roblox has been communication — there’s a lot of Roblox memes about “hashtag hashtag hashtag.” With AI, these filters have gotten better and better.

12:00 I don’t understand, why have a sort of open-ended text communication feature at all on a game that is very popular with young people? There’s enormous benefits for having people be able to communicate. There’s a lot of kids who find their peers on Roblox.

17:00 Here’s the dynamic that I think people find frustrating. Large tech platforms seek enormous scale, then they notice they have a problem and try to solve it, then keep growing, and there’s another problem. What a lot of parents want is some sense that people have a plan for what happens when the 25 million people show up.

20:00 Last year, Hindenburg Research came out with a report arguing Roblox was compromising child safety to report growth. Baszucki noted Hindenburg is no longer in existence and pushed back, arguing the shift to AI moderation was about improving quality, not cutting costs.

24:10 I’m actually not frustrated. I just — I thought we were going to be talking about fun things and the industry. I’m not frustrated. I’m just kind of figuring out how much fun time I have with you guys. But happy to talk about whatever you guys want. I also remember 15 years ago when Mark Zuckerberg said AI would solve all content moderation.

30:00 Do you think that screen time for children is getting a bad rap? When my son was really young, we had pretty radical screen time limits. 2:00 a.m. heavy blue light, solo consumption, short form video — that’s arguably a different type of screen time than noon with your friends playing hide and go seek.

33:00 Baszucki brings up Polymarket and prediction markets. I think mathematically prediction markets, if they’re liquid and transparent, capture all of the world’s information. Would you ever put a prediction market inside Roblox? Let kids bet with Robux? I actually think it’s a brilliant idea if it can be done in an educational way that’s legal. Oh, to be clear, I think this is a horrible idea. I was just interested if you were thinking about it.

35:50 My kid right now is about 3 and a half years old. Will you fix the problems with safety on your platform by the time my kid is old enough to ask? I’m going to go more out of the box — Roblox is an amazing platform right now for your kid, and I’m happy to go deep with you, possibly under NDA, show you metrics, do whatever it takes to get you over the hump.