Gaming giant Roblox has banned and threatened to sue a YouTuber known for confronting alleged predators on the online gaming platform. Roblox, massively popular with children and teens, has a troubled past filled with allegations of grooming and allowing predators to run rampant.
Roblox sent the 22-year-old YouTuber — who boasts 684,000 subscribers — a cease and desist claiming he violated the platform’s Terms of Use and Community policies, according to a screenshot of the letter posted by Schlep to his X account on Saturday.
The cease and desist accuses Schlep of engaging in “unauthorized and harmful activities on the Roblox platform,” which “directly undermine Roblox’s safety efforts and, critically, are exposing our users to increased risk.”
The letter goes on to claim the YouTuber has been “engaging in simulated child endangerment conversations, sharing or soliciting personally identifiable information, and directing users to move conversations off platform.”
Roblox went on to insist the platform “is committed to aggressively combating illegal and harmful conduct, including child exploitation, through a dedicated and sophisticated team of safety professionals, advanced moderation systems, and partnerships with law enforcement agencies.”
“While Roblox acknowledges that your stated intentions may be to protect children, and while it recognizes the serious nature of online predatory behavior, your methods, including failing to immediately report suspicious activity to Roblox through proper channels, are actively interfering with Roblox’s established safety protocols,” the company added.
Roblox further claimed that Schlep’s methods have been “exposing” its users “to increased risk.”
The YouTuber denied wrongdoing, arguing that Roblox, “a multi-billion dollar company,” has sent him a cease and desist letter and “threats of litigation,” all because “I catch predators on their platform.”
“Within the last year, me and my team have gotten six predators arrested within the Roblox community,” Schlep said, adding, “Almost all of them have admitted to doing this before to other Roblox users.”
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“Accounts that we were actively talking to predators on have now been banned off of Roblox” the YouTuber continued. “What Roblox did could potentially stop some predators from facing real life consequences.”
Schlep explained that decoys in predator-catching investigations avoid initiating sexual talk to prevent entrapment, adding that most chats were collected on Discord — the voice and chat platform popular with gamers — rather than Roblox.
The YouTuber further argued that sharing personal information with police should not be considered a violation.
Schlep went on to reveal that he was groomed on Roblox when he was a child, adding that his mother contacted the gaming platform Roblox, but the company “brushed her off.”
“When I was a kid, I was groomed on Roblox by a popular developer,” Schlep said. “He manipulated me. He used power dynamics over me and frequently exposed me to gore and not safe for work material and loads of other stuff that a kid should never see.”
“It was so bad that I actually made an attempt. While I was in the hospital, my mom contacted Roblox. They brushed her off. That predator went on to groom more victims before Roblox finally banned him years later,” he added.
Schlep also provided examples in which Roblox allegedly failed to act on serious reports, such as threats to the Las Vegas Sphere that he claims were reported both to Roblox and the FBI.
“I’m trying to stop what happened to me as a kid to happen to future kids. How can you see that as a bad thing? I just I genuinely can’t comprehend it,” Schlep said.
As Breitbart News reported, Roblox and Discord have faced a lawsuit alleging that their platforms facilitated the exploitation and abuse of a 13-year-old plaintiff.
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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