This is either an ominous portent for Roblox or a major government agency trying to look tough. Either way, what has been discovered is the fact that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is actively investigating the company behind the games platform.
Bloomberg reports that the SEC is performing an “active and ongoing investigation” into Roblox Corp but did not provide further details, even when journalists invoked the Freedom of Information Act, saying only that offering more information would “harm […] the ongoing enforcement proceedings.” Roblox Corp has also reportedly provided no comment at the time of this writing.
Regular readers know that Roblox has been the focus of several alarming reports over the years, with multiple watchdog groups and other orgs calling out the game’s platform exposing children to online predators, advertisements that are barely disguised as games, and other hateful content, while the platform’s earning model has also been accused multiple times of exploiting child labor. So really, there are any number of reasons for the SEC to start digging.
Incidentally, Roblox Corp announced just yesterday that it would be a founding partner for a new nonprofit known as ROOST (Robust Open Online Safety Tools), which aims to develop, distribute, and maintain open-source AI-powered safety tools for use by multiple companies.
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