Parents, if you’re kids play Roblox, you might want to find them another game to play. Because not only is it not safe, but it’s willing to ban a guy who tried to make it safe for kids.
If you’ve been on YouTube or other social media platforms recently, you might have seen #FreeSchlep trending. Schlep is a 22-year-old man and longtime Roblox YouTuber who has recently banned from the platform and threatened with legal action. The reason? Because he had managed to get multiple child p****** on the platform arrested in real life. Now, when I first heard about this story, I knew little to nothing about Roblox beyond it being a big video game platform. I had never even heard about Schlep before I heard about what was happening. But after doing research and seeing what was happening, I was shocked.
What Shclep Went Through as a Kid
As I learned from various YouTubers and from Shclep himself, Roblox, despite being aimed primarily at kids, has a disturbing number of adult players who use it for material that kids should not be exposed to. There are numerous games on Roblox that are meant for adults, yet do they get rid of them or take steps to keep minors from being exposed to them? All they do is put a 17-and-up label on them and call it a day. And according to community members, they only delete the worst games after they had complained about them for years.
That’s not the worst of it, though. The platform is rife with predators who use it to go after kids. These kids get manipulated, extorted, and subjected to things that I can’t even mention here. That’s how bad it is! Even worse is that according to Shclep himself, he was a victim of one of these predators when he was a kid. The experience was so traumatizing that he attempted to kill himself at one point. Yet when his Mom attempted to report this to Roblox, they did nothing in response. In fact, Schlep’s abuser kept running amok for several years until they were finally banned.
What Shclep went through as a kid changed him; more importantly, it lit a fire in him. While he continued to play and stream on Roblox, in recent months, he had given himself a new mission: catching predators. He and several other Roblox players would organize sting operations, using decoy accounts and pretending to be innocent kids to act as bait. They would lure predators in, continue to play dumb, and let the predator implicate themselves. Once they had enough information, they would contact and coordinate with local law enforcement, giving them all their evidence, and then the cops would come in and throw the cuffs on them.
The Great Roblox Player Revolt of 2025
Roblox claims that these actions make Schlep a vigilante because he is taking the law into his own hands. According to them, he should have reported these predators to them and then they would take it from there. However, as previously stated, his Mom did do that, and they failed to do anything. Worse, her son’s abuser would find more victims until Roblox finally stepped in to ban them. It makes sense why Schlep and other people would choose to simply work with the police instead. Roblox couldn’t be trusted to police itself. And despite calling him a vigilante, Shclep is working directly with law enforcement to catch these people. He’s even uploaded multiple videos showing the entire process and been thanked by the police!
So, what does Roblox do? They ban him.
On August 9th, Schlep revealed on Twitter that Roblox had sent him a cease-and-desist notice. They claimed that he violated their rules on vigilantism by refusing to contact official channels, and knowingly participated in inappropriate activities by encouraging predators before moving conversations off Roblox. Furthermore, they deleted every account he made, and if he attempted to access Roblox again, they would take legal action. If they were trying to make an example out of him, though, then Roblox failed. Instead, their actions have led to open rebellion.
In the days since Schlep’s ban, countless people in the Roblox Community have rallied to support him. To many people, he’s a hero who’s doing what the company itself couldn’t, or possibly wouldn’t, do. Some of the most prominent Roblox YouTubers have announced they’re quitting the game in protest. #FreeSchlep has become a rallying cry across the Internet. Even people who’ve never played Roblox are expressing their outrage at the company’s apparent lack of care for its players. Schlep himself has announced that he intends to countersue Roblox for putting countless people in harm’s way and failing to do anything about it. He’s not alone on the matter. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill’s announced that the state is suing Roblox for the same reasons, while others are following suit. In addition, they’ve managed to gain the attention of the last person whose radar they would want to be on: Chris Hansen.
Chris Hansen is Coming after Roblox
For those who don’t know, Chris Hansen is an investigative journalist. Back in the 2000s, he became famous for hosting Dateline NBC’s segment To Catch a Predator, where he and his team actively worked with law enforcement to lure child predators in. He’s continued focusing on true crime since then, and he’s pretty much every child predator’s worst nightmare. And in a recent tweet, Hansen confirmed that he’s now working on covering what’s happening with Roblox. He’ll be actively working with Schlep and others to produce a documentary covering everything. Depending on how bad the things they find are, it could cripple Roblox. Though the platform is already starting to feel the effects.
Besides the threat of lawsuits, Roblox is also losing on the financial front. Their stock prices have fallen 7% since this whole thing started. In addition, there are several online petitions demanding that CEO David Baszucki resign, one of which has 210,000 signatures. Its not looking good for them, but judging by what I heard, this is a problem of their own making.
As a gamer, this disgusts me.
I’m a lifelong gamer, and I think video games are for everyone. But there has to be a limit to what kids are able to access while they’re still young. Some kids are able to handle more mature games without negative effects. And not every adult who plays an online game aimed at kids is going to have ill intentions. But if this is what adult players are doing, then they have an obligation to keep kids safe from this kind of behavior. Better yet, they should consider making a separate version meant for adults only! If things are as bad as Schlep says it is, then Roblox brought what’s coming to them on themselves. And if they get shut down or parents have to block kids from playing, it will be their fault when kids start crying because they can’t play their favorite game anymore. People play video games for fun or to make a living, not to deal with this. #FreeSchlep
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