Nonsense like this is the exact reason I stopped playing and developing on this nightmare of a platform. It really shows you where corporate Roblox’s priorities lie.
There are far more pressing issues with the platform like the rampant child endangerment, copyright infringement, and inevitable unsustainability of Roblox’s current practices as a company, yet they are more concerned with taking down cosmetic bundles that are conceived as “inappropriate” because they lack an pointless, inconvenient censor-bar that does nothing but hinder creators and serves to help absolutely nobody.
I guarantee you if you showed any sane parent a bundle that lacked a modesty layer, they wouldn’t have nearly the same thought process Roblox’s corporate decision-makers seem to have regarding whether or not it’s appropriate.
This was never even much of an issue before the introduction of the modesty layer because there is literally nothing down there. The mental gymnastics required to try and claim these bundles are inappropriate is nothing short of astronomical.
If you ask me, I think this is probably a calculated decision by Roblox to try and cover-up their disregard for more pressing matters, like actual child endangerment issues. Roblox refuses to take any form of genuine action on that front, so this is their way of pretending they’re committed to child safety.
My thought process is this. Roblox starts heavily cracking down on bundles lacking “modesty layers” which implies that unclothed avatars are an issue to begin with, which, to any unsuspecting parent or news outlet that does no research on the matter, will assume is Roblox acting to enforce child safety. Though this is just a distraction from the much more pressing matters like the TROVES of inappropriate accounts, groups, and 2D clothing that doesn’t get properly moderated because everything moderation-wise that doesn’t involve money is either automated by a robot or outsourced.
Enforcing a policy like this so suddenly is incredibly suspicious as well, considering there are much more drastic issues right now like the fact that the UGC market is, and I cannot emphasize this enough, absolutely RAMPANT with copyright-infringing accessories, including many of these bundles. That market is bound to crash within the next three years, similarly to the audio catalog before it. It could be a distraction from the actual issues with UGC.
All this does is show complete incompetence from the higher powers at the company. It’s yet another addition to an embarrassingly long line of terrible decision-making and management from said higher-ups. These kinds of poor decisions happen so often now you’d think they were actively trying to be terrible, and for all we know, they very well could be.
I honestly think the only company I’ve ever seen that rivals Roblox’s incompetency is 343 Industries, and that’s saying something, since 343 at least managed to get reformed by Microsoft.
Anyway, I stand with all the developers trying to get the modesty layer requirements either lightened or outright removed. It’s incomprehensibly stupid it’s gotten to this point and every figure responsible for this decision-making should be ashamed of themselves for focusing so many moderation-related resources into such a non-issue, especially considering there are drastically more important moderation issues that are in desperate need of attention.
With that, I will be returning to my inactivity.
EDIT: Just to further prove Roblox’s blatant incompetency on the matter of actually moderating their UGC catalog, a shirt I uploaded nearly a decade ago was removed for “copyright infringement”, being an old 2D shirt of Mario. I was warned for this. However, one search for “plumber” in the UGC catalog shows tons of UGC Mario hats, some of which are literally just ripped out of real Mario games. Baffling.