‘Roblox’ CEO Says Predators Are “An Opportunity” To Improve Moderation, Questions Hosts In Car-Crash Interview
Roblox Corporation CEO David Baszucki attempted damage control over Roblox‘ predator problem, only for the interview to be a total car crash. A questionable statement taken out of context went viral — saying predators on the platform were “an opportunity” to improve child safety online. Baszucki also asked the interviewers if they had “done their own research” after being questioned over a damning report from last year, and attempted to claim they agreed with him. Repeatedly.
The Roblox Corporation’s name is mud after banning predator hunter Schlep (as vigilantism is against their ToS). In turn it exposed how poorly children are protected on Roblox, and inappropriate user-created games and emotes run rampant. The outrage sparked demands, lawsuits, and investigations from US politicians; bringing older cases and lawsuits to the forefront.
While age checks for communication started rolling out on November 18th (becoming mandatory in “select markets” in early December, expanding globally in early January), co-founder and CEO David Baszucki was still in hot water over the handling of the situation, along with Schlep accusing them of trying to contact him behind his lawyer’s back.
Comments in 2023 about him wanting to make Roblox into a dating platform (for those 17 and older, verified with photo ID) also resurfaced, and something the company still pushed for the month after Schlep’s video, but joked about “upping” it to 18+.
Roblox Corporation seemingly decided the best way to fix their reputation was with Baszucki being interviewed about the new age verification. This was conducted by the The New York Times’ Hard Fork podcast, hosted by Kevin Roose and Casey Newton (transcript article by Rachel Cohn).
In a pre-recorded introduction after the fact, Roose noted the situation could have implications for the rest of the internet. Particularly as governments have or are attempting to implement laws to ensure children are protected from harmful content, and tech companies have used age verification via live photos or government ID.
Newton also felt it was a “tense conversation” with Baszucki.
Right out of the gate, Baszucki produced a damning sound-bite. After being welcomed onto the show, Newton asked him about the aforementioned age-verification. “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,” Baszucki replied.
Though only the start of his answer, this condemned Baszucki in article headlines, quotes, and on social media. In actuality he continued, rhetorically asking, “How do we allow young people to build, communicate and hang out together? How do we build the future of communication at the same time?”
“We’re going to be using facial age estimation with A.I. to complement that,” Baszucki declared, fending off other doubts.
Across multiple answers, the CEO stated age verification is supported by multiple methods to determine a user’s age and prevent work-arounds seen with other platforms, text communication is heavily filtered, and the corporation was working to snuff out “more sophisticated” bypassing techniques like switching letters for numbers and symbols.
Baszucki also stated the corporation took “enormous responsibility to design” for parents who weren’t “sophisticated” and didn’t disable communication for their child. “We have to design for all parents and think through that.” At multiple times, he insisted the company was pro-active in seeking technology and solutions to safeguard and prevent harm.
The age band of most users was also revealed, having “migrated” from under thirteen, to almost two thirds being over thirteen (albeit self-reported). Baszucki was also asked about the general discussion around “screen time” for children.
As the aforementioned new age-verification system for chat prevents users of dramatically different ages communicating, Newton was prompted to ask why “any anonymous adult could talk to any anonymous minor” in the first place.
Though Baszucki championed the aforementioned text filtering being in action since “Day 1,” Schlep had revealed rather shocking and soliciting comments made by users on Roblox, not to mention hang-out spaces and user-created emotes not appropriate for children.
Newton highlighted lawsuits and investigations into Roblox Corporation, proposing that predators weren’t struggling to beat the filter. When pressed why he felt the filter was working, Baszucki interjected, “I don’t want to comment on it.”
Baszucki explained Roblox Corporation did have access chat logs, and admitted “people who are fairly sophisticated” and “kids” over 13 years of age had figured out “how to jump to some other platform” for unfiltered communication — “one of the primary things” the company was looking to prevent.
Luring a user off Roblox is against the game’s terms of service. It’s a technique Schlep noted predators used, and when he was banned, moderators accused him of doing the same (despite him actually “following” predators off the platform, with no entrapment or encouragement).
Baszucki added that the corporation was proactive, not “waiting for the rest of the industry,” and taking action because “it’s the right thing to do” — not because new laws came in such as the California age-appropriate design code act.
Newton did not relent, proclaiming that “it does become clear in those lawsuits that Roblox is kind of, you know, where predators go to find kids.” Baszucki would “categorically reject the actual description of what you’re saying,” despite what lawsuits or the press “portray it that way.”
Baszucki further defended Roblox Corporation of “doing an incredible job at innovating relative to the number of people on our platform and the hours.” Despite admitting users going off-platform was an issue, he insisted the notion of an adult asking a minor for their Discord name would be “a very simple red flag” that text filtering would catch.
He also defended Roblox having communication between players, as children found friends, including those who were lonely or isolated. Baszucki then touted “famous parents” had told him their children “would be dead” if not for finding communities within Roblox.
Roose inquired if any platforms had the same size and number of young users would be “experiencing similar safety challenges.” Baszucki stated he “wouldn’t categorize any of that,” and clarified despite platform’s scale being “somewhat mind-boggling” he wouldn’t be using that as an excuse relative to other platforms.
He then almost did just that; throwing out figures such as “11 billion hours”, “150 million people every day,” and some games having 25 million concurrent players.
As Baszucki attempted to further note other “big numbers” in the gaming industry, Newton interjected, scoffing that Roblox Corporation must have wanted that “scale,” and encouraged it via push notification and login rewards.
While Baszucki rationalized the corporation did want growth (being “3 or 4 percent” of a $190 billion industry), Newton laid out that the frustration that came from large tech platforms not being proactive. He felt parents wanted to know the company had plans “when the 25 million people show up,” rather than “wait ’til 20 years in existence to say: ‘Maybe we should sort these people into age bands before they start communicating with each other.'”
Once more Baszucki rejected Newton’s implication, yet again insisting they are “constantly looking ahead.” He gave the example of how “a month into the company” — when Roblox had only about 200 people — the founders decided to “stop everything” and build a safety system before focusing on growth (leading the founders becoming moderators).
While Baszucki had been composed despite refuting every allegation against Roblox, this crumbled after the interviewers brought up Hindenburg Research and their damning report in October 2024.
The investment firm, through a mixture of lawsuits and discussions with former employees, claimed Roblox Corporation inflated the number of users and “engagement hours” on Roblox, were “compromising child safety in order to report growth to investors,” and focused on “growth at all costs.”
Shortly thereafter, Roblox Corporation refuted the “misleading claims” in the report, and accused them of having an “agenda.”
It should be noted Hindenburg Research also focused on activist short-selling; exposing major corporations for failures and even illegal activities, and encouraging others to short them. Ergo, someone could make a profit as those companies’ assets lost value.
Nonetheless, Roose highlighted the report’s claims, adding, “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 did they have wrong?”
After a brief pause and a smirk, head resting on his knuckle in a display that attempted to project being calm and non-nonchalant, Baszucki responded. “So, fun… Let’s keep going down this. And so, first off, Hindenburg is no longer in existence, correct? So, you should report on that,” he chuckled. “They went out of business for some reason.”
Founder Nate Anderson ceased Hindenburg Research’s operations in January 2025 to avoid being “selfish” — wanting to share the company’s investigative techniques with the world, and spend time with family and friends.
“The other thing is, have you researched that information?” Baszucki stared intently at Roose and wiggled his eyebrows. Roose got out a pregnant “ummm” before Baszucki added, “Because you’re asking me about this, I’m curious if you’ve done your own research.”
“I have, I have done some research about-” Roose started. “And what’s your take on that?” Baszucki asked, becoming the interviewer. “Well, I’m asking you,” Roose redirected.
After a brief pause, Baszucki gave what seemed to be a bizarre non-answer and metaphor — at first.
“So it’s really interesting, because I think we’re diving into a situation where we’re getting better, better, better. But would you ask the same situation of someone who converted from maybe hypermanual labor making cars by hand to an assembly line? The assembly line might be infinitely better and at the same time not have so many people,” Baszucki pitched.
“So, I think what they’re [Hidenburg Research] referring to is moving more and more and more and more to A.I. Arguably, is it better to have A.I. systems reviewing every image, every piece of text, all of that, or to keep doing that manually? So I think that was a misnomer,” Baszucki rebuked.
He added, “And I think if you interview anyone in our safety team or safety systems, that would be just part of making our systems better.”
Roose clarified, “just so I have the clear response, the argument is that the shift has been from a more manual safety team and system to a more automated review process that may do a better job even if it costs less to operate because-“
Interrupting the interviewer, Baszucki doubled down, insisting that “system” would constantly move to higher quality, more accurate, and more diligent systems, always seeking to review more and do better. He proposed if he and Roose were working on reviewing “every single image going into Roblox at a higher and higher quality,” and found AI was the best way to do it, “would you pick that?”
Baszucki raised his eyebrows insistently.
Roose gave a non-committal “Yeah,” to which Baszucki replied, “Good, so you’re aligning with what we did. High-five.” Baszucki did not offer a high-five, unmoving, eyes locked on Roose. Even as Roose attempted to ask more questions, Baszucki attempted to frame the situation as though Roose had agreed with him.
“But I’ve also been covering social networks-” Roose started. “Thank you for supporting our Roblox decision matrix,” Baszucki declared while he, Roose, and Newton nervously laughed. “But I also remember 15 years ago when-” Roose was spoken over again. “I’m so glad you guys are aligned with the way we run Roblox. High-five.”
Baszucki did not offer a high-five.
Let’s try again. Roose asked, “Right, I also remember 15 years ago when Mark Zuckerberg was saying-” then Baszucki interrupted with a question of his own, which asked, “Is this a stealth interview where actually you love everything we’re doing and you’re here to stealthily support it?”
Newton put an end to the farce. “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.” Roose and Newton instead agreed to “finish up.” Roose attempted to smooth things over, saying “I totally buy what you’re saying about using the best technology on the market to keep people safe.”
Baszucki missed the chance to bury the hatchet, vindicating his strange actions by stating, “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 pod- I thought I came here to talk about everything.”
Roose finally got to somewhat ask his question. He explained how individuals like Mark Zuckerberg had offered lofty promises on what AI could solve (to the delight of investors) and failed. Baszucki admitted, in 2016, the reliance on automation, algorithms, and “not being on top of what’s going on in your company” lead to “a lot of weird dystopianess as well.”
He then reiterated that he loved the questions, reiterating, “I’m glad you guys are supporting how we’re running Roblox on our A.I. technology.”
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Roose pried if Baszucki was confident AI was good enough for moderation at Roblox‘ scale. Baszucki went back to touting Roblox‘ “mind-boggling” scale, and all their moderation systems “constantly getting better and better.”
Despite Baszucki keeping an even voice, Newton decided to poke the bear. “I mean, look, Dave, I can tell you’re 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 in the industry and all of that,” Baszucki insisted, his voice monotone, in an interview where he had already been asked about if his platform had a problem with pedophiles after a disastrous exposé.
“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 superfocus. But I’m happy to talk about whatever you guys want,” Baszucki affirmed.
Newton proposed “one last thing,” asking if it was “very difficult to do content moderation at scale,” as they had learned “from every single company.” He then tried to assure Baszucki they were “kind of on the same page,” and sympathized as a CEO of such a company “the best thing that happens during your tenure is that nothing happens, right?”
Baszucki interjected, his eye literally twitching. “I want to push back on that.”
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Baszucki felt that a fearful and defensive “oh-s–t posture” wasn’t optimal to “build an amazing company,” further declaring, “The optimal posture to build an amazing company is: ‘Oh my gosh, we are uniquely responsible for a lot of people 12 and under.’ There’s so much constant learning, constant innovation that if we can do this right, like, the future is really, continues to be big and bright.”
“And I feel we’re uniquely in an opportunity to do excellent work in this 6-through-12 zone where many, many other platforms, you know, bounce off of it because they just can’t do it. They’re just not doing it right. So that is not how we run the company. We view it as a high-responsibility situation, but an incredible opportunity if we can do it right,” Baszucki proclaimed.
On how he measured success to the point he’d be able to declare “Bring your kids to Roblox,” Baszucki confessed there were private metrics that were studied “all the time,” and “constantly getting better a we add more and more A.I. on top of it.”
He then emphasized his own children were on the platform (his eye twitching yet again), along with “thousands” of corporation employees, but also that “a parent is the ultimate arbiter of responsibility.” For those not comfortable with their children going to a park, or playing with a certain toy or on Roblox; “who am I to say, right?”
As the interview wrapped up, the final nail in the coffin was hammered in. Roose and Newton explained in the interview’s introduction that they had been discussing prediction markets and Polymarket in the corridor with Baszucki before the interview began.
Therefore, when asked about future projects, Baszucki quipped, “Oh, wow. I thought we were going to talk about Polymarket and, like, dropping, like, things into Roblox – like, earnings calls.” Newton was surprised (to the point of laughing), and confirmed to Baszucki that he and Roose were “big fans” and had discussed it on the podcast before.
After Baszucki discussed on how Polymarket’s predictions were “30 to 45 minutes ahead” of journalists on election night, and its potential in prediction markets Roose asked if he would “ever put a prediction market inside Roblox,” letting children bet Robux on the outcome of games.
“We would, I think we would have to do that, once again, I’ll share some of the complexity. Every single country in the world has different legislation around loot boxes and kid gambling. And so we would have to be- it sounds very fun and obvious,” Baszucki beamed. “Like, I love that -“
Roose quickly added, “Oh, to be clear, I think this is a horrible idea,” as Newton and Baszucki laughed. This may suggest the CEO was in on the joke.
Baszucki insisted the idea was still “brilliant” if done “in an educational way that’s legal,” with no Robux or prizes changing hands. “Yes, start them young. That’s what I always say. When it comes to gambling, you’re never too young,” Roose snarked.
Newton downplayed this, comparing to how his elementary school his class did do a straw poll on the 1988 presidential election. Only for Baszucki to explain a straw poll is not a prediction market, and the result would be different if the children bet “10 cents of lunch money.”
The final question was asked by Roose; in around a year’s time, when his child would be old enough to play Roblox, will the problems with safety be fixed? Baszucki proclaimed, “I’m going to go more out of the box than that. Roblox is an amazing platform right now for your kid.”
“And I’m happy to go deep with you, possibly nondisclose you, show you metrics, all of that, to do whatever it takes to get you over the hump.” After one last insistent look, and the trio said their goodbyes; when the video dropped, so did the anvil.
The aforementioned articles focused on the “opportunity” quote and the reactions to the interview overall. MoistCr1TiKaL (Charles Christopher White Jr.), a YouTuber with 17.5 million views, shone a spotlight on the interview entitled “Roblox CEO is Delusional.”
He blanket condemned Baszucki’s choices for Roblox as “f—–g odd” (such as the 17+ dating idea still being underage), and Baszucki himself as “creepy.” Other choice terms White Jr. used included “unhinged,” “combative, defensive”, “deer in the headlights”, “tone-deaf”, “delusional,” unprepared, and “preached” children gambling.
Several commentators in the Hard Fork video mentioned coming from the MoistCr1TiKaL video, and were no less brutal in condemning Baszucki.
Roose shared the interview on X, and the comments and quote retweets to that and subsequent excerpts were equally as scathing. Baszucki seemingly got at least some feedback, as he replied “@kevinroose thanks for having me on. Always happy to talk about our commitment to safety and other fun and industry-leading stuff that Roblox is working on.”
“Looking forward to the next time – High Five!” Even if this was a joke, the replies to his comment show this didn’t save him.
Roose took time to clarify a few points. “To be clear, Roblox pitched *us* on interviewing their CEO about child safety. We don’t ambush people. But he seemed totally caught off-guard by the questions, and got angrier the more we asked.”
Roose closed with his stance on Baszuki’s answer to gambling in Roblox. “Podcast hosts: never forget to ask your silly joke questions, like ‘should there be a Polymarket-for-kids inside Roblox?’ You never know when you’ll get a sincere, enthusiastic yes.”
