Parents have long been warned of the dangers of online gaming, including their children being exposed to child predators. Since last year, the popular game Roblox has been a haven for groomers and sexual abusers, according to media accusations.
Over 13,000 incidents of child exploitation in Roblox were reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) in 2023, up from 3,000 in 2022. Around 24 predators were arrested for grooming and abusing victims on the said gaming platform that is widely played by the youth on different consoles, namely: PlayStation, personal computers and other mobile devices, making it highly accessible to children of all ages.
With over 77 million players every day, 40 percent were reported to be under the age of 13.
According to Bloomberg, responding to 1,300 requests from law enforcement for details on predatory players, several prolific abusers were allegedly able to evade detection on the platform.
As per sources from the online game, it has spent "almost two decades making the platform one of the safest online environments for our users, particularly the youngest users." In a statement, it said that the news outlet's report contained "glaring mischaracterizations about how it protects users" and "fails to reflect both the complexities of online child safety and the realities of the overwhelmingly positive experiences that tens of millions of people of all ages have on Roblox every day."
Roblox's Chief Safety Officer Matt Kaufman claimed that as their platform evolves and scales, forging a new future for communication and connection, their investment in preventative safety measures remains fundamental.
Kaufman added that "only 0.0063 percent of its total content was flagged as violating our policies around issues such as bullying, hate speech and violent extremism via our detection and reporting systems."
However, the report from NCMEC indicated that members of the Roblox staff, including developers and employees, have also been caught engaging in inappropriate behavior. In fact, a social media manager was reported to have run a pornographic website while still being an employee.
In another case of child exploitation, a 12-year-old girl was abducted by a man who had used the platform to groom her. And despite being flagged for his activity, he was allowed to use the platform even on the day of the abduction itself.
Florida resident lures young boys into gaming and exploits them
Scottsdale Arizona police reported in August that 23-year-old Jacob Lozano, posing as a teenager, sought out young boys between the ages of 10 to 13, enticed them to play various online gaming platforms and then sexually exploited them.
A mother of an 11-year-old boy with special needs found sexually explicit messages on her son's cell phone between him and Lozano. The mother then contacted police and the NCMEC, according to police records. Cops soon discovered about a dozen other Arizona boys who they said were also sexually exploited by Lozano.
Lozano enticed and coerced the boys into performing various acts on camera, a Scottsdale detective said, and "they were being surreptitiously recorded." The suspect gave out rewards, such as PlayStation gift cards.
This wasn't the first time Lozano was connected to an NCMEC CyberTip about online crimes against children. According to records from the DeSoto County, Florida Sheriff's Office, images of a prepubescent boy were found in a social media account controlled by Lozano.
After this latest investigation, Lozano was arrested in Florida and extradited to Arizona in January. He was charged with 14 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, and three counts each of aggravated luring of a minor for sexual exploitation and unlawfully misrepresenting his age. Lozano is in jail awaiting trial.
Meanwhile, a 2022 report from the Government Accountability Office found that increases in online access, new technology and the rise of encryption are contributing to growing online sexual exploitation of children.
"The scale of sexual exploitation and abuse of children online is increasing and the sustained growth is outstripping the U.S. government's capacity and global capacity to respond," the report said.
Records obtained by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at Arizona State University from police agencies across the state revealed that from 2020 to 2022, cases of sex trafficking and sexual enticement could be traced to online platforms based overseas and to social media applications. (Related: Big Tech leads million-dollar campaign to kill bills that are meant to keep children safe online.)
Watch the video below exposing the Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz's inappropriate interactions with underage individuals in the past.
This video is from the Real Free News channel on Brighteon.com.
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