Roblox Moderation needs a fix

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#1

About me
I have been on this platform since 2011,and started 2D clothing design as soon as 2012.
Over the years as my experience grew I also started making stuff inspired by things I like. Anime, Videogames etc. As I was not making any real-world money I also didn’t think about copyright at that time.

Starting UGC creation and DEVEX
In the summer of 2024 I started getting into 3D design, making UGC. My first big-hit was a Back-accessory based on Kacchan’s Guns (My Hero Academia), it looked quite similar but since this design is so simple and too general I think (correct me if I am wrong) it doesn’t fall within copyright law. People started flooding in, I started making UGC on request. It was around this time I noticed my pending robux going up by factor 10, and I started thinking about joining the DEVEX program. Than I had the idea to make The Creaking (a newly released minecraft mob) I modeled it and uploaded it without a second though. Definitly my mistake as this is clearly not general enough, and thus is indeed protected by copyright law.

The DMCA strike
However this is where I feel things got waaay out of hand. I got DMCA striked on this item (which I believe is absolutely fair for the mistake I made) but my account (Pokeball1997) got immeadiately permanently deleted. I uploaded over 700 2D clothing, and 33 UGC items. Prior to this DMCA claim I got a DMCA claim on two assets resulting in two warnings on one day for assets that belonged to a 2D Avatar the last airbender outfit (Also really my bad, as I shouldn’t have used the name, the arrows and I couldve just made a yellow overcoat with some red underneath).

ROBLOX’s ToS and Appeal
The ROBLOX ToS clearly states:

“Continued violations of certain policies may result in a stricter consequence (i.e., a warning, followed by a timeout**,** followed by a suspension, etc) …”

My warning was never followed up by a time-out but went to immediate account removal.

  • Support team says I fall under the ‘repeat infringer policy’, I asked to define a repeat infringer, cause I only got 3 warnings in total (2 warnings + 1 ban), There were months in between where I did not get any warnings or committed any mistakes, but they never answered
  • Support team says I have received DMCA claims AFTER my account has been removed, I asked for what assets but they never answered
  • Support team ended conversation stating they can do nothing for me.

My Experience
In general my experience with ROBLOX is double sided. I admit that they should be strict and act when necessary if someone commits something against the rules. But at the same time I really feel like it should be more nuanced. I uploaded so many things with only 3 that actually do form a problem right now. Additionally, the copyright thing is too vague, you see people uploading so many copies of stolen models from anime or anything else that I just thought: well if I make it myself and it is not immediately recognizable from the show, I should be fine. And finally, since I didn’t get a timeout I did not know in what predicament I was, or how bad I was doing as 2 warnings can be easily clicked away.

In conclusion
Does this justify what I did, absolutely not, these were mistakes I commited and I was definitely in the wrong a few times.
Is ROBLOX flexible and nuanced and do they treat each moderation like you are an actual individual? Absolutely not, they just say the same response every time and don’t have any room for context or opinion.

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UGC Moderation SUCKS
Can you Devex after account termination?
#2

UPDATE:.
Last communication with ROBLOX support stated

You are prohibited from creating a new account on Roblox.

When asked the question if I can still use my alternate account.

I am at a loss here, how is it that, me a creator who made everything from scratch (Poke Trends) but made mistakes regarding copyright infringement only a handful of times when everything else I made is still there. How is it that I get a penalty this severe. But someone who just copy and pastes (see here) alot of IP protected assets is totally fine. I need help!

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#3

It is now officially been a month since my account has been terminated.
I do acknowledge the mistakes I made. My knowledge about these topics were insufficient, I didn’t understand the severity, and I thought I was fine since everyone else is basically doing the same.
I should’ve read more upon it after my first warning, as I didn’t know I could ask ROBLOX to take down any assets I uploaded. I will continue my journey here on ROBLOX though I will be more cautious, yet still I want more justice. I am not a copy-paste bot. I uploaded UGC once or twice a week with best intentions. I don’t see it likely that they will ever activatate my account again, RIP Witchbrew and real Epic vampire face. You will be missed

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#4

Man this sucks.

DMCA and copyrights are taken very seriously. A little mistake related to copyrights can even get your account terminated without warnings, bans or even notifications.

Just because everyone’s uploading copyrighted stuff to Roblox and they’re fine, doesn’t mean you’re also safe to upload them. When people upload copyrighted stuff to Roblox, they’ll remain there until the copyright owner files a DMCA takedown. So, if you see any copyrighted stuff on Roblox, it basically means that the copyright owner hasn’t filed a DMCA takedown request yet. It doesn’t mean you’re also safe to upload the same copyrighted stuff.

At least you learnt from your mistakes. Use this as a lesson for the future.

Wish you the best!

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#5

Thanks, I just really dislike how they treated this. I acknowledge my mistakes, if only I paid more attention to the warnings (As I had warnings in the past before about a zombie shirt being too sexual) . I didn’t think about it alot, and than they went from 2 warnings to immediate account deletion. This I really don’t like, if they want to make you see the severity of your mistakes they should start with short-term bans. I now understand why no one uploads with their main account anymore.

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#6

My account was terminated too a couple days ago. Roblox moderation is horrible and honestly always has been but is definitely worse now. Nowadays Roblox support is useless because the answer is always an automated “No” and unless you are known or know someone on the inside your chances of getting untermed are slim to none. My account was terminated before in 2022 for a DMCA like you but I got it back, this is my second termination on this account and I got unterminated again but just for a day, then they re-terminated my account and said this in the support email:

“We would like to inform you that your account has been terminated for violating Roblox’s terms of service, and due to repeated infraction of the rules, it is not eligible for reopening.”

It’s unfortunate that our accounts can just be taken away like that and have basicly no help getting it back. Years of playing, countless hours of progress, gone in an instant. It sucks to lose everything you spent such a big part of your life on over something dumb like this. Maybe an admin will see this and help us out who knows. I would use an alt account with a different email/phone connected if you still want to play Roblox and I wouldn’t spend any more money on this platform. Anyways I wish you good luck on getting your account back!

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#7

I think if you want more people to see your issue you should post it here… Good luck getting your account back!
https://devforum.roblox.com/t/roblox-moderation-needs-to-be-addressed/1709732/4216

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#8

It is very unfortunate indeed, so much time, just because I did something stupid and wasn’t paying too much attention. I acknowledge my mistake, but this penalty just isn’t in correlation with what I did. I earned virtually nothing from those 2D assets and maybe like 500 robux from the UGC. copyright protection is only for stuff you sell, I did sell, but still there should be room for flexibility and context. Had they just banned me for one day the severity of it wouldve been more clear for me before I got deleted.

#9

It may be just me, but I definitely have a feeling moderation got way worse since the Roblox company went public, which brought on people to harmonize the company with the rest of the tech industry.

What do we hear from other social media platforms like Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, and the rest?
A lot of the same stuff.

Copyright and the DMCA is one thing, because that’s something out of Roblox’s control, but Roblox being very slow in giving people tools to remove copyrighted stuff has been notoriously talked about without end on the Dev forums. Now we can Archive Avatar Assets however it does come with caveats, problems, and questions that have been not yet been answered.

Roblox’s problems are plentiful but I don’t think they’re exclusive to just Roblox.
This is an industry wide problem with moderation in general. There needs to be better ways to sort out legitimate bad actors and those who made honest mistakes, especially in Roblox’s case where people were trapped for so long under a DMCA trap waiting for a way to get rid of stuff in the long past that they uploaded and can’t remove.

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