US Politicians, Chris Hansen Demand Answers After ‘Roblox’ Takes Legal Action Against “Vigilante” Predator Hunter
Schlep, a YouTuber who helps expose and aid in the arrest of child predators operating on Roblox, has been ousted from the platform, after the platform gave him a ease-and-desist order. Roblox decried “vigilante groups” and declared that their actions cause more harm than good, amid several prior incidents of failing to protect children. This prompted a US congressman, a state attorney general, and Chris Hansen to demand the platform changes its ways.
On August 7th, Roblox Chief Safety Officer Matt Kaufman published a corporate news post on “How Roblox Partners With Law Enforcement.” Therein, Kaufman emphasized safety was “foundational” to the platform, described as “built for all ages, including users younger than 13,” and working with both law enforcement and child-protecting NGOs.
“Unfortunately, there are cases of vigilante groups or individuals violating our policies to entrap users or otherwise self-police the platform,” Kaufman insists. “While these groups may appear to have the public’s interest at heart, they are in fact acting in ways that could be harmful to others, both on and off our platform. For example, their efforts may leave bad actors on the platform longer simply to create more sensationalized social media content.”
Kaufman further claims, “Actions taken by vigilante groups increase the risk of more users being exposed to bad actors and can delay enforcement efforts by both Roblox and law enforcement.”
“Any account, including those of vigilante groups or individuals, caught violating our policies will face consequences up to and including removal and banning, where warranted.” Kaufmen recommended users avoid acting outside the community guidelines or terms of service by “taking matters into their own hands,” and use the platform’s reporting functions.
Two days after that corporate news post, Schlep announced on X that the Roblox corporation had sent him a cease and desist letter, and all of his accounts had been terminated. In his YouTube video on the subject, Schlep claims some of those accounts were actively being used to talk to predators.
The YouTuber emphasized he would not be attempting to access the platform unless the company said otherwise, and denied all the claims made in the cease and desist, including “exposing Roblox‘s users to increased risk.”
Focusing on the “Engaging in simulated child endangerment conversations” and “Directing users to move conversations off platform” actions brought up by Roblox, Schlep explains that predator hunters avoid entrapment; only the predator can make sexual conversation and request users talk on other platforms. “Most” inappropriate conversations took place on Discord.
As for the “sharing or soliciting personally identifiable information” claim, Schlep can only speculate Roblox means handing over information to law enforcement. He also took especial insult to being told he wasn’t “immediately” reporting predators to the “proper channels.”
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Schlep claims he had filled out all of the platform’s reporting forms, reached out to work with the platform on multiple occasions, and gave the Roblox Corporation the same Google Drive access they had given to law enforcement. Yet they would fail to act even after months, and he had more results with authorities, NGOs that protect children, and the news.
Even in cases where a predator was banned after they were exposed in Schlep’s video, Roblox staff didn’t respond when Schlep alerted them to that predator allegedly returned to the game, and a kidnapping took place weeks later. CEO David Baszucki reportedly blocked Schlep when he brought up this fact to him on X.
Schlep would later highlight how a predator he assisted in bringing to justice had their game nominated for a Roblox Innovation Award this year.
The Roblox Corporation allegedly didn’t respond even when contacted about users under felony arrest, or when sent binders of evidence to their headquarters.
The threat of legal action and terminating Schlep’s accounts was the first time Roblox Corporation had reached out to him; not even a warning. This also includes his ‘Maliboomer’ account, focused on family-friendly theme-park content within Roblox, and it had “paid [his] rent.”
Schlep recounted the time when his mother reached out to the company after he had attempted to take his own life due to being groomed on the platform.
While they “brushed her off” with links to suicide prevention and support websites, a reminder to use the platform’s report function, and insisting they would escalate with any additional information provided, that predator would allegedly go on to groom others until banned “years later.”
Schlep also highlighted that staff hadn’t banned inappropriate usernames, nor “smash or pass” or hangout games such as “condos” and public bathrooms featuring users engaged in simulated sexual acts and predators sought-out underage users, even when the FBI had warned the public about them — and seemingly no cease and desist to the predators Schlep had managed to get arrested.
“I’m just trying to stop what happened to me when I was a kid from happening to other people., and now I’m facing threats of litigation from a multi-billion dollar company.” Schlep encouraged his audience to spread the word of what had happened far and wide.
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Sure enough, the community did push back. Along with #FreeSchlep trending on X along with #BoycottRoblox and #SchlepStrong, the story also caught the attention of Asmongold, MoistCr1TiKaL, and xQc — among their millions of subscribers racking up over 3.1 million views across their videos on YouTube.
Players made their voice heard from within the platform. Multiple in-game protests spread awareness, though mods are allegedly disconnecting users to prevent the dissent from spreading. Schlep claims some users have told him they were closing their accounts, including creators.
Speaking of creators, YouTuber KreekCraft claimed and summarized, “There’s been talks between very large Roblox YouTubers planning a mass exodus from the Roblox Star Program. Roblox developers planning #freeschlep chants at RDC [Roblox Developer’s Conference]. A few sponsorship opportunities in jeopardy due to Roblox‘s recent actions. That’s where we’re at right now.”
KreekCraft — one of the first YouTubers to join — would later go on to upload a video wherein he explained why he was leaving the Star Program. While not an easy decision, the content creator said he felt it was “the right thing to do.”
This hasn’t gone unheard by the most vulnerable. Schlep shared multiple messages allegedly from parents deactivating their childrens’ accounts, and even from children who thanked him for catching predators who targeted them.
All this discussion shed extra light on prior and ongoing controversies. The day after Schlep was banned, Roblox updated to include user-created emotes. Schlep and others highlighted how even innocuous emotes could be used to create sexual scenes, such as cat-like stretching, push-ups, lying down, and far more blatant hip–thrusting and twerking while doing a hand-stand.
Former cases were also brought back to the forefront, such as a class-action lawsuit against Roblox in 2023, and in 2024 when the community had exposed a predator, but 18 months later they abducted and sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl.
The following lawsuit quoted Hindenberg Research’s findings, where a former employee stated, “You have to make a make a decision, right? You can keep your players safe, but then it would be less of them on the platform. Or you just let them do what they want to do. And then the numbers all look good and investors will be happy.”
The lawsuit itself added methods to keep children safe “could all have been implemented years ago. None of them involve any new or groundbreaking technology. Roblox only moved forward when its stock was threatened.”
All of the above only made CEO Baszucki’s 2023 comments about wanting to make Roblox into a dating platform (for those 17 and older, verified with photo ID) even more abhorrent.
The platform finally gave a response, in a way, to Steven Asarch of PC Mag. They didn’t address Schlep’s case at all, with a representative alluding to vigilantes breaking their terms and being self-serving.
“It’s important to speak with the right sources to really understand how vigilante individuals and groups operate (e.g., violating policies around sharing PII [personally identifiable information], engaging in sexual conversations, lying about their ages, etc.), all while having a profit motive to evade detection instead of providing companies like ours with all the information to take the necessary action,” the Roblox Corporation’s representative asserted.
Schlep was revolted by Roblox Corporation’s response, along with the “profit motive” allegation. Even Asarch found the response odd, as he explained to Schlep. “They didn’t even say they wouldn’t directly comment. I asked them very specific questions about your story and they just ignored them.”
“At least a ‘no comment’ would have made more sense than what they gave me.”
Schlep had reached out to Ted Cruz (Chair of the Senate Commerce Committee and former Senator for Texas), but started to gain traction from other friends in high places.
Representative from California Ro Khanna shared a video with Schlep (a day later on his own TikTok), launched a petition to demand Roblox “to do more to protect children, provide more support to parents, and strengthen law enforcement protocols that help bring predators to justice. And give creators and developers a seat at the table.”
With pressure mounting, Kaufman gave another corporate news post — “More on our Removal of Vigilantes From Roblox” — almost a week after the first. Yet they only attempted to justify the company’s decisions more.
In summation, he still insisted, “While seemingly well-intentioned, the vigilantes we’ve banned have taken actions that are both unacceptable and create an unsafe environment for users,” and that they violated the terms of service, and alluded to self-profit (and holding onto information to facilitate it), and entrapment once again.
Kaufman also made the bizarre comparison, noting, “Similar to actual predators, they [predator hunters] often impersonated minors.”
Kaufman further explained, “Due to privacy considerations, we cannot inform users whether their reports have led to consequences.”
The Chief Safety Officer also shared Roblox Corporation had submitted over 24,500 reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2024. (“0.12% of the 20.3 million total reports submitted across the industry”). For comparison, Discord had over 241,000 reports, and Reddit over 334,000.
4Chan had only over 3,000, and actual pornography website PornHub had just 30 reports. Both less than Roblox.
“Separately, we recognize the community’s frustration with how we handle reports of violative behavior that occurs outside of Roblox,” Kaufman relented. “These often come to us as screenshots from other social media and messaging applications.”
“We do our best to investigate these reports. However, we can’t act on them unless they can be independently confirmed or we observe similar behavior on Roblox. Acting without verification would open up a significant abuse vector, as bad actors could simply manufacture incriminating evidence to target other users.”
Kaufman’s begging for users to use official reporting tools — which he describes as “designed to capture key metadata and details that cannot be captured from an email or screenshot and enable faster, more effective reviews and more thorough reporting to law enforcement, when warranted” — fell on deaf ears as the official tweet for the news post got community noted with their past and ongoing failures.
Schlep once again was disgusted by Roblox Corporation’s mud-slinging, focusing on predator hunters over actual predators, and refusal to acknowledge the idea of working with him — even under their touted “Trusted Flagger Program.”
The statement didn’t slowdown the controversy at all. Qatar reportedly banned the platform over child safety concerns, and Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill announced the State would be suing Roblox Corporation for failing to protect children.
If successful, they would be banned from operating in the state, could no longer claim their safety measures were adequate, and would give restitution to the state, pay legal fees, and civil penalties and damages.
Along with showcasing the vile activity on the platform, she also championed age verification laws such as the UK’s controversial Online Safety Act and the USA’s proposed Kids Online Safety Act.
Roblox Corporation would eventually respond, emphasizing the platform was safe and “constantly innovating safety tools and launching new safeguards.” They also claimed, “Our Trust & Safety team takes swift action (typically within minutes) to address violative material and accounts are removed through AI scans, user flags, and proactive monitoring, with a dedicated team focused on enforcement and swift removal.”
Schlep released one last statement — revealing he had now retained both Stinar Gould Grieco & Hensley, PLLC, and Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman, PLLC.
Amid their summery of what had occurred, the statement revealed, “Crime journalist Chris Hansen has contacted Schlep about participating in an upcoming documentary investigating Roblox‘s handling of child safety issues.” Hansen himself also confirmed the news on X.
Milberg Co-Counsel Gary Klinger and Melinda Maxson declared, “Michael [Schlep] is doing exactly what Roblox should be doing – identifying and stopping predators who target children. Instead of partnering with him, they’re trying to destroy him. That tells you everything about their real priorities.”
This mounting pressure finally resulted in action from Roblox Corporation. In their 43 minute “Update on Our Safety Initiatives” featuring Baszucki, Kaufman, and Senior Director of Product Policy Eliza Jacobs largely repeating what had already been stated before; reporting illegal actions to authorities, needing to those actions private, and their Terms of Service.
Kaufman continued the rhetoric against vigilantes, and that predator hunting without the company’s permission was against their ToS.
Jacobs also claimed evidence that had been submitted to the company was “really difficult to verify; real difficult for us. And if law enforcement had to verify it, then they’re talking about subpoenas, and so I think something that sometimes seems obvious to folks in the community, really is just more complicated on the back end.”
Later Jacobs emphasized there was “more they could be doing,” including an update for games with “intimate spaces” that engage in policy-violation. Sure enough — as part of Roblox’s “Clarifying Our Policy on Romantic and Sexual Content” — Social Hangouts are now 17+ (verified by ID), and they are rolling out new technology to detect “violative scenes.”
“We’re clarifying our policy that prohibits romantic and sexual content to also explicitly prohibit content, settings, or behavior that implies sexual activity,” Kaufman’s corporate post announced.
Kaufman also insisted they would be investing more into “partnerships” with law enforcement and relevant groups, becoming more pro-active in outsourcing their “key-technology” (as they had with voice moderation and grooming detection), and “set a standard for what safe communication means” for children and teenagers.
The company is also investing in “bad scene detection.” So that in an offending game sever “instead of trying to figure out who the one individual is who’s causing a problem, we will just take down that one server, alert everybody to the fact the behavior there was violative, and do that to be more proactive in addressing some of these issues.”
Jacobs also stated they are “thinking about” a Community Safety council, and “potentially prioritizing reports from high reputation users or power users of the platform who might have better information for us.”
When Baszucki asked Kaufman about how to respond to videos decrying what was happening on Roblox, Kaufman replied that while he appreciated people identifying problems, “it’s a little bit ironic that that kind of content is often shared on social media and video sharing platforms, and not moderated there.”
At this time of writing, Roblox Corporation has lost $12.177 billion since August 6th.
