Over the past month, Roblox’s automated systems have taken overly harsh moderation actions against my game Bloxtown [Showcase] (asset ID: 5611540156, with over 34,000 visits), which was released five years ago. My game had a perfectly clean moderation history until last month, when Roblox permanently banned it for two assets I had added to the game years ago, each of which had been moderated separately. Similar bans have also recently occurred in popular games (e.g., Flee the Facility, Mini Cities 2) for minor reasons/things they added to the game long ago, like having a Twitter handle appearing in-game, supposedly “directing users off-site”. The difference is, however, that my game has less of a social media presence than these popular games, and therefore it made it more difficult for me to fight off the ban ike they did.
Game moderated [twice] for Violative Assets
In my case, I was moderated twice: for a mesh inside a police car that contained a company logo and its phone number, and for a decal that I added years ago of a California licence plate that included an off-site link to California's DMV.This was the first time Roblox had ever taken action against my game (which had been regularly updated over the past 5 years). I immediately complied and removed the asset from my game. Initially, I really had no problem with this moderation action; they swiftly delisted my game for this violation and later reinstated it.
Fifteen days later, the same game was once again moderated for “directing users off-platform” (in my case, having a link to the California DMV within a licence plate on a car). This time, the game’s link was entirely removed and redirected users to a 404 error page. I contacted Roblox support and went through the same process to have the game unbanned.
Couldn’t they have just moderated the decal and left my game alone if that was the only violation? It is worth mentioning that these assets are not recurring/major features in the game that users would notice, so I did not understand why they had to take such harsh action when I am clearly complying and trying to get them removed. The assets that got my game moderated can be seen below:
Contacting Roblox Support for assistance (to no avail)
Keep in mind, I had this game up for 5 years and spent thousands of hours editing it, so I was actively trying to resolve the issue of repeated content moderation. I tried everything I possibly could—even asking them to scan my game and determine whether any other assets or features violated their ToS, so that I could remove them before it came to the point where my game was in danger of being permanently suspendedProof of my compliance and desire to remove any remaining violations (before the game was permanently banned)
My request:
Their response:
You can see they entirely dodged my question regarding the ongoing moderation issue my game was facing, and just responded to the individual moderation issue.
I decided they probably wanted a new support ticket from me to handle this issue, given their reluctance to inform me what else was in my game was violating the ToS. Therefore, I submitted another ticket asking if there were any further “small things” in my game that broke the rules. They also dodged that question, saying “they already removed my previous bans”, providing no further assistance.
Game Permanently Banned (with lack of transparency)
A little over 24 hours after I made my plea to remove any other potentially violative assets, Roblox completely banned my account for a day and completely content-deleted my showcase, citing I was "misusing Roblox systems", and this time, I was not even allowed to appeal their decision, as my misconduct was so "severe".
They denied telling me the reason behind the ban, and even though I asked them for more context, they simply said something like “we are sorry and can not provide more information”, giving a lack of transparency as to what I was doing wrong.
My request
While I can understand the motive behind the first moderation action taken on my game for containing a phone number, the fact that they banned me two separate times for other similar reasons (small features in-game “harming user safety”) seems extraordinarily unfair—given these assets were taken from the Toolbox months and years ago, and also the fact my game previously had a clean record. I strongly do not believe these small mishaps alone justify a permanent suspension, considering I complied with Roblox Support’s orders and even asked them (before the game was permanently banned) ways that I could remove other potentially ‘violative’ assets that were added to my game long ago to protect my game.
I believe that Roblox moderation should be aiming to protect the community by removing individual violative assets (especially when the violations are isolated occurrences), instead of punishing developers who are clearly acting in good faith. I retained a clean record on my game for five years and complied with every instruction once I was moderated. I even asked for proactive assistance (though I was ignored) to remove any potentially more violative assets to prevent further and more severe moderation actions against my account. For small oversights involving assets on the Creator Marketplace, it was unfair to terminate my game without a way to appeal the decision permanently.
I really hope someone can help make this case be reviewed and reconsidered, and I wish I could have had the chance to correct the alleged violations before the game was permanently suspended.