Roblox has banned a developer following an episode of The Kardashians which showed Kim Kardashian's son discovering a game that claimed to contain a new sex tape featuring the reality star.
The episode shows six-year-old Saint West running over to Kardashian with his iPad, gleefully showing her that her infamous crying face was being advertised on the children's megaplatform. Things quickly turned sour however once Kardashian discovered that the game was apparently advertising a "new sex tape" featuring her within (thanks, Polygon).
Later in the episode, Kardashian calls Ye while crying, expressing her concern that their son could have potentially seen explicit imagery of herself on what is largely supposed to be a children's platform. "It was a game that someone made of Roblox and it said 'Kim’s New Sex Tape' when you clicked on it," she told him. She later threatened to sue, saying: "I have all the time, all the money, and all of the resources to burn them all to the fucking ground.”
- 'Don't let your kids be on Roblox', Roblox CEO tells parents, before comparing himself to Walt Disney and declaring the platform 'the future of communication'
- Creator of horror game Poppy Playtime sues Google for refusing to remove 'bait-and-switch scam' apps that pretend to be the real thing then charge users up to $95 for literally nothing
at first i thought its funny when she cried over a roblox game, then i watched the full clip & i actually feel bad for her :-( pic.twitter.com/Zv1gFs12OTApril 15, 2022
Since the episode aired, Roblox has confirmed that it's banned the offending developer while clarifying that no explicit content had made it into the experience.
"The referenced video was never available on our platform—we have strict moderation and policies to protect our community, including zero tolerance for sexual content of any kind which violates our Community Rules," a statement to Polygon reads. "The text reference to the tape that got around our filters was quickly taken down and fortunately visible only to an extremely small number of people on the platform. We also swiftly took down the associated experience and banned the community developer involved with the experience."
Despite Roblox being largely marketed for children and played by children, concerns around poor moderation and exploitation of young kids have been rife. People Make Games dove into predatory practices which makes it incredibly difficult for developers to make money, plus a follow-up investigation that scrutinised how it moderates its collectables market.
