The best description for Roblox’s moderation is “Kafkaesque”.
Moderation can just hit you right out of the blue and then you’re sent through a bewildering and confusing process where neither the cause of the moderation action nor the nature of the proceedings are made clear. Moderation can often be absurd and random without any explanation like if a specific item anyone might of uploaded to Roblox gets moderated, the uploader most often doesn’t even get the chance to even see the very item thats been moderated.
Roblox Moderation has been described as “1984”, but “Kafkaesque” is, in my opinion, much more accurate. It’s aptly describes how any reasonable person confronts with the absurd. Players are put through unnecessarily complicated and frustrating experiences just to play a video game or use the platform for their own creative expression.
Roblox is not the only site that does this, but other websites and their users also deal with moderation practices that are often described as nonsensical or confusing. Roblox though, in my opinion, really takes the cake in being among the most frustrating and opaque.
Moderation can be a very isolating alienating experience where nobody is provided with an advocate in the appeals process. We are all just ordinary people up against a giant faceless corporation where its not even clear if an appeal is being sent to a bot or a real person and the decision seemingly is left up to chance if an appeal will be approved or not. It’s getting to the point where it feels like Roblox isn’t made for regular everyday people, but made for other companies and game development studios that do the major heavy-lifting developing and have the resources necessary to comply with Roblox’s labyrinth of rules.
THIS POST IS NOT MEANT IN ANYWAY TO INSULT, SHAME, CRITICISE, PERSONALY OR GENERALY ATTACK ANY INDIVIDUAL OR INDIVIDUALS, OR INCITE ANY “RIOTING”, OR “HATESPEECH”
thank you,
So about a year ago this account got APPROPRIATLY banned for sometime (i think 3 days) over an image i’d uploaded, it contained “Sexual imagery”… since games logos are VERY sexual, as any one would know
[] ‘l-l’ []
logo
-which i had used in my game passes as placeholder images and on the group and game. this was my 7th variation (i added the “ALPHA TESTING”) and each one had been approved smoothly within a day. however, OBVIOUSLY Alpha Testing is a very sExUaL IMaGe, so when i appealed, the moderator KINDLY informed me i was RIGHTLY banned, and that i must wait the full 72 hrs. so as you can tell, i was very HAPPY with this, and PATIENTLY waited it out.
this message is meant as a angry statement worded happily so as to appease the moderators.
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Poll since ive noticed mods only pay attention to them.
Moderation.
Moderation sucks, i know first hand (i was terminated/banned)
Moderation sucks, i know second hand (friend was terminated/banned)
Moderation sucks, i know from seeing it happen to others
Moderation sucks, i know from others telling me.
Moderation does NOT suck, honestly who’s going to pick this?
I agree with you. Roblox has recently released a automatic moderation system. This moderation system could easily be abused. Someone in my server said “Spam #Parents if you love your parents!”, so my sister spammed it and got kicked right away and was warned.
This should have never been spammed, but the guy/girl clearly knew what they were doing because they kept doing it even know I told the girl/boy what happened.
This is why moderation needs to be fixed and another step needs to be taken. I take this seriously.
With the amount of NSFW content on Roblox, whenever it would be groups or games or avatar items, is from what I’m seeing an all time high.
The fact that none of it has been taken care of shows how flawed the moderation system is, and it tells us that Roblox doesn’t care about general user safety and more cares about what rakes the most money in.
It’s absolutely vile and it needs to be shown to the public, whenever it’s on the news, YouTube, anywhere at this rate.
Adding onto this, I personally haven’t had a problem with Roblox moderation, I’ve only seen it from others - until today.
5 years ago, in November 2018, I created a game about the civil war. Shortly after, Roblox began banning games about the civil war. Thus, I changed my game to be about a different topic to comply with the then-recent ToS change. However, there was another place I had created which was essentially a proto-version of the original game (Charlottesville, Virginia - Roblox). This version was private and only used briefly, and so I had forgotten about it.
So now, Roblox gives me a 1-day ban for a game that is 5 years old, privated, which I had forgotten about, for something that, at the time, wasn’t even against ToS. The exact reason? Well, they didn’t tell me in the ban note, so I appealed (unsuccessfully). The reason was because “confederates” was one of the teams in-game. Really, you’d think after explaining the situation in the appeal they’d revoke the ban.
You’d also think they’d just delete the game and give me a warning - though funnily enough, they didn’t even delete the game at all, so I’ll have to manually go and change it before I get banned for it again.
I’m just glad it was only a 1-day ban, but it’s still super frustrating to get that over something so obviously stupid.
roblox is honestly just very inconsistent abt game banning n’ stuff.
you could get banned for a day from an old game you forgot abt, while a year later you get a warning from another that has been automatically deleted.
That kind of thing is common with moderation on other platforms where they won’t tell you specifically what has been banned has to be the most frustrating bit. That’s why I label Roblox’s moderation, and moderation across the internet in general, as “Kafkaesque”. That is a word I think more people should get to know and use more frequently.
It should be a requirement for all platforms to specifically show what item has broken the rules and when and where it occurred. The person being accused should not have to figure it out themselves.
I got my account terminated for owning a Civil War game with a few million visits. No battle flags or anything, it was just a fighting game. No warning or anything; instantly terminated lol. They refused to speak to me about it after I appealed.
I actually sent you a message way back then asking for advice about Roblox’s tolerance to civil war content! After that is when I changed the subject of my own game to no longer be about the civil war, since I was worried I’d get terminated too. Looks like I got a slap on the wrist anyway.
I also think moderation needs to be fixed, see these 2 stories
My story
I got once a warning only bcz i put a youtube link for some roblox music i heard.
I only have a photo from my phone, that’s why i don’t have a image/video about that, but luckily it’s only a warning, but i think roblox can stop banning people for chatting youtube links.
Youtuber story
Also i have a moderation issue i wanna say: Recently a youtuber got IP BANNED!!! Only bcz from a shirt that she uploaded years ago, when they were too younger and she didn’t knowed about copyright (reason of the ban.) Instead of an IP Ban by DMCA Report, they could only give a warning or 1 to 7 day ban.
Yes, this kind of of moderation message needs to stop. It doesn’t cite anything you’ve done wrong.
What might happen is that in your Personal Messages, Roblox may have listed the item or items moderated but won’t allow you to see it until after the ban is over. That is if they listed it in a personal message.
This leaves up a situation where you have no idea what caused the ban to occur and the appeals process only allows you one chance to to appeal. In a way Roblox is tricking you into denying your appeal when you have zero information to work on.
This is a direct example of how Roblox Moderation is “Kafkaesque”, very similar to the book “The Trial”
One of my groups ‘Kingdom of Spain’, in December of 2023, was falsely locked by Roblox on the assumption that it was promoting “Fascism”, specifically “Falangism and Francoism” even though my group has nothing to do with those ideologies. I had no communication servers. I wasn’t particularly active with the group.
Anyone was welcome to join, up to 170 people did.
Granted I believe this comes from a misunderstanding.
Three little words I think may have tripped the algorithm in the moderation.
I got an extension that allows me to see locked groups so I can take a look at the ranks and description of the group.
The description is modeled from a Wikipedia page information panel that’s found on the right-hand side for all the countries in the world.
It lists the Capital City, Language, National Anthem, Form of Government etc.
In the Government type category it had “Constitutional Monarchy, Theocracy” and a rank called “Grand Inquisitor”
This was definitely a mistake on my part and wasn’t careful enough. It does not reference Spain’s history from the 1930s to 1970s, but they’re not words that inspire inclusivity.
I just wish that Roblox would give another chance and just did what they used to do and just make the description and/or rank “Content Deleted”.
It was a nice group to have because it was an authentic ‘Name Snipe’ group, as in that my ‘Kingdom of Spain’ was the original group with that name. All other groups that wanted to have that name had to use extra lettering, acronyms, or fake letters.
I was banned for saying, “Stop joking about 9/11”, as well as answering “Yes”, in Spanish in Roblox chat, I think what was a bit worse was when I appealed the first time, it was refused, but when I appealed the second time, it was finally taken into account and my account was unbanned. I guess, I’m happy someone in the appeals team took me seriously. However I’m disappointed of the fact that my account was banned just because of trying to stop others from making jokes about a terrorist tragedy, they mistakenly banned me for that(I presume the moderation who gave me a ban was a bot) and if it weren’t for someone in the appeals that finally took my issue seriously, I wouldn’t have been unbanned. Plus you’ll notice in the following, how is this connected to terrorism or extremism to anything in what I said?!
I suppose I am reviving this topic to point out my second brilliant experience with moderation on Roblox. Since this is so egregious and “only” a 1 day ban (despite not having any prior moderation history), I am assuming the appeal will be successful. Still, it is rather ridiculous. It’s been nearly five years since my old account was wrongly terminated and I still have to sleep with one eye open about any innocent asset I upload on a non-alternate account.
My old account got wrongfully/randomly terminated in 2019 and the part where they put the reason was straight up left blank lol. You really can’t make this stuff up.
so as to appease the moderators.
