Roblox's Moderation Needs To Be Fixed

Feature Requests Website Features
#58

I will say that ever since I originally posted this thread 2 years ago, there have definitely been some improvements to the day-to-day moderation systems, and I wanna give credit to them for that. Image moderation has been less of a pain, as things are getting approved much faster with fewer cases of incorrect rejections. The Fast Track reporting system was a great step towards more transparency, and I hope to see more features which provide transparency to all users (such as being notified when a moderator takes action on your report, so people can be confident that the system is working as intended). However, clearly there’s still some major shortcomings that are worth discussing.

It’s still obvious that the appeals process simply doesn’t work for the majority of people - if you don’t have a direct line to DevRel, then you’re completely out of luck if you get falsely punished. I do understand the rationale of automating some of the process, as I’m sure there’s a lot of regular kids who deliberately break the rules and then lie to the support emails. It would be a huge waste of time to manually reply to all of those kids. But the process used for those kids shouldn’t be the same process used for the developers who call Roblox their livelihood.

When you’re dealing with accounts that manage actual games/groups on the platform and can be worth thousands of dollars, it’s not acceptable to just hand them a canned response and block them from appealing. Moderators are human, and humans make mistakes - serious cases which can impact someone’s livelihood deserve a second, closer look to make sure no mistakes are being made.

56 Likes
#59

I still have a recent example of this exact problem occurring again. A dev in a small developer community was falsely banned for “Descriminatory language” with no explanation, no moderator note, and no luck with appeals. The ban was a 3 day ban, however, in my opinion it’s strange that these things happen to begin with.

I’ve seen multiple examples of completely random bans. I’ve had friends who’ve been banned over quite literally made up reasons, with moderator notes including things along the lines of: Literally gibberish (??? I’ve now seen three specific cases of this recently now), incomplete content (e.g. unfinished sentences), completely irrelevant information, and more. What makes it strange is, I have genuinely no clue how these moderator notes are coming into existence and seemingly going unnoticed. It just seems so weird that these are popping up, notably the first example, which I’ve genuinely seen more times than other reasons so far, with little to no explanation.

Overall though, I do tend to agree that things have improved from what they had been. I remember an image of a paper texture quickly getting rejected and simply changing the hue a tiny bit was the only way I could resubmit it. Now things have been much more consistent for me, and I feel like I’ve seen less complaints and strange bans in general.

22 Likes
#60

It’s been a while since I posted replies regarding moderation, but I want to address things. Yes, there is more transparency in player reports and better ways of handling image moderation. But there are still two factors that need to be considered in moderation, which I believe are two factors that can and will change the entire game of how moderation works and how people will see it.

The first thing would probably be the ban system. People generally know it for being trigger-happy and there are people getting moderated for things that shouldn’t even be humanly possible. The appeals system only works for a singular time, according to ROBLOX Support. Based on this, I feel that bans should have everything the player needs to know about the ban before they are banned. [images of what they did wrong, better elaboration on the issue, more details in general.] This would help the player understand more about their punishment and know for certain what they got banned for before they have to face Support. I have known many people who got banned from ROBLOX for something along the lines of black market deals or scamming others, but they had to ask Support directly because the punishment simply said “violation of the TOS.”

The second and arguably most important thing would be the moderators themselves. Countless amounts of copypasta, lack of reasoning and depth, and thoughts of superior judgment are the traits I can give them. They seem more robotic and automated to me than human and seem to be some sort of shadow entity, personally. My experiences with the Support team have been ghastly and unsatisfactory. Recently they got around to blocking my email for arguing their decisions, which they didn’t provide much detail about. I feel that if moderators had the time into delving into issues with importance and respond thoroughly and meaningfully, then we could improve moderation.

15 Likes
#61

Well, that’s better then I put it. I only wish it didn’t feel like all hope was lost when an account gets terminated. Truthfully, I admit I got carried away with my own thread. While it started small, I was just astounded by the number of cases that came into light. It was just mind-blowing to see that so many developers were getting wrongfully ban. Seeing developers who have worked so hard to better Roblox as a whole, be an active and helpful person in the community getting ban was just unfathomable. I got frustrated after hearing @Wasteds story. I just couldn’t believe a successful developer who is an active and responsible user of the developer exchange program was just terminated like that. I was shocked when I read his 25-page appeal with evidence. The introduction of it only asked for 20 minutes, and I was able to read it in 5, so I just couldn’t believe someone out there on the appeal team just probably skimmed over it and just ruined his career.

For my own situation, I and my friend were saving Robux through commissions and the selling of limiteds (in-site) to start a fan group. Not really for profit, just for fun. We raised around 140k robux. That probably is not too much for more established developers, but regardless, it took quite a bit of effort to gain. Now I am just refreshing the recruitment page on the forum every few minutes to see if I can get hired to make the robux back. Looking back, my own anger and frustrations showed negatively in my thread. I realize now it was unacceptable and unnecessary. I do hope anyone reading this forgives me for that, I should’ve acted more calmy at the situation. At that moment it just seemed like we were trapped. We know all too well that the appeal system isn’t too great, and that most people get denied even with evidence. I started the thread out of panic, and while it eventually got filled with more off-topic and spam-like posts which were not my intention, I believe some message did come out of it.

I completely understand several aspects of the moderation system. I don’t expect Roblox not to use bots, on a platform this big, it’s kind of needed. I only wish much more consideration was at the least put into account deletion, as that is a quite serious punishment that can just ruin the Roblox careers of many developers who don’t have a large voice or as you said, a direct line to DevRel. I believe that a more well-drawn line is needed to divide players and developers so that legitimate Roblox developers who have been on the platform for years and have assets that date back those years don’t face undeserved punishment. With over 100 million active players on the platform, a false ban mistake here and there is understandable and expected. It just sucks that the appeal system which has the intent of fixing these mistakes is so flawed. Maybe Roblox can possibly implement a form like system specifically for appeals that directly asks for a brief explanation of your situation, and has different inputs for evidence so that a better level of organization can be achieved. And maybe appeals with evidence can be put on a higher priority list. It’d also be nice if this appeal form could also automatically check if the player is an active user of the Developer Exchange program so that their appeal could be put on an even higher priority.

For my situation, I believe we can somewhat manage. We will have to delay many things, probably work even harder to get the Robux back. I know others who have faced this same situation will be less fortunate and can not manage with their current situation. I really hope someone can do something about that.

To reiterate the possible ideas that I have presented:

  • An appeals form system may be much better system with much better organization that can prioritize the needs of different players to make sure those who depend on Roblox get the immediate attention that they deserve.
  • Maybe for appeals, some sort of investigation/evidence report can be created and given to the player so they know why they were punished.
  • I understand if a reason for account termination can not always be given. But the fixing of the appeals system must be made a top priority of Roblox. There should be investigations with gathered evidence that can be used as reasoning for the accounts termination later on during the appeal process.
21 Likes
#63

Hello all, I am @OmegaInvictus. I have not been able to comment further on my situation until now, as I have managed to have my alternate account here added as a member of the developer forum.

Let me first say that some of the support I have received from strangers here has been extremely welcome. I want to thank anyone who has sent me support through social media/Roblox or who has simply liked my previous post, here.

Now, I will give my update. In April, many of us were participants on a discussion about moderation issues. I don’t know if that link will work now because the discussion was ended and I think it was moved to a forum only regulars can see. Anyways, after I posted about my situation there in solidarity with a handful of other people, I was mysteriously logged out of my developer forum account, and with my main still terminated, I could not log back in. @Wasteds and NickoSCP, who posted here before me, also had the same things happen to them. I am certain that all three of us posted here in the hopes of getting our situations fixed, as the appeals process is woefully broken. Nicko actually ended up getting his false termination fixed, but logging all of us out was not helpful.

Anyways, my account is still randomly terminated. As we have all established, Roblox appeals is entirely unhelpful. They refused to do anything about my ban, and now refuse to speak to me about the issue entirely, instead sending me default “we can’t do anything” responses to my appeals. This has forced me to explore other alternatives that so far have not helped. For example, I have been regularly tweeting at various Roblox accounts on an account I made explicitly to do so and I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, both with the hopes that it might do something in expediting my account being restored. So far, this has not been the case.

Yesterday (June 6th), a new development emerged regarding my situation. My only game, which was never taken down, was placed under review. While my friends and players were up in arms about this, I have remained hopeful that this is a sign that someone actually is looking into my situation. As my game is in complete compliance with the guidelines of Roblox, I have nothing to fear from a real review of it, and I hope that once it passes said review, it might assist in getting my account fixed. Oh, and I replied to an appeal ticket asking about the place review, and the appeals team responded with a copy pasted reply, ignoring my questions completely.

So what have we established? Well, for starters, the appeals process is woefully inadequate. It is very troublesome to get anyone to give you a real reply, and they show zero signs of caring about you losing what could potentially be your livelihood due to a mistake or an extremely overzealous content moderator. Luckily for me, Roblox is not my livelihood, but I have still had to endure the “trauma” of having my thousands of hours of work being destroyed over what I assume is a mistake and having to endure relentless harassment from people who have been very pleased by all of this. This has shown me that there either needs to be a complete overhaul of the system, or there needs to be a second appeals system that developers, perhaps members of the forums, can use for more a more in depth and communicative investigation.

To finish my long reply, here, I want to ask the developer forum for advice. The appeals team has completely ignored my issue for nearly six months, now, and I have very few options other than to continue appealing until I reach someone willing to look into the issue. Is there someone or something else I can contact to try and get this fixed? Developer relations, maybe? I spent nearly ten years on my account, so any help in getting it fixed will be appreciated. Please feel free to message me here on the forums or on Roblox.

Thanks

Post to reply to: https://devforum.roblox.com/t/robloxs-moderation-needs-to-be-fixed/143524/

Hello, folks. I thought I would give another update on my changing situation.

Since my account was randomly terminated last December, there has been no reason listed on the message. That is to say that the place on the ban where it tells you what you did was empty. You can imagine my surprise when I logged on the other day to find that my ban had been updated to have a reason, a bogus one, added on. This was maybe a few weeks ago closer to the beginning of June. Since then, my ban has been fluctuating and updating either to change or add a reason, and it now says that my account was terminated on June 19th, last Friday, at 2:15 in the morning.

Despite the literal reason for my account being terminated changing, the appeals people still refuse to speak to me about this, and I have not had luck in contacting the Roblox staff about this. As I said in my last reply, to establish a paper trail of my disputing this from the beginning, I have been appealing regularly, have tweeted at staff, have posted here, and gave a complaint to the BBB. Unfortunately so far, none of that has been successful.

I hope that some Roblox staff member sees these posts, not only so I can have my situation resolved, but to see that the moderation and appealing system desperately needs work, and at minimum developers should have some alternative way to speak to staff about these kinds of situations.

A2JDnQf
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What I mean by there being no reason given.
Appeals
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My paper trail.

Here’s to hoping this can all get fixed.
Thanks

53 Likes
#66

My name is Freezenex and I’m currently being ignored by Roblox Support. My previous responses were made in hopes under the guise that something would change, but it has so far proven to be futile.
One could arguably say that this is during a pandemic and that response times will be much slower…but I have been on this same issue with Roblox for 390 days.

To put a long story short, I was compromised sometime last summer for 25% of my net worth, from some limiteds I got from past commissions and some minor trading afterwards. I knew all the details about the person who compromised me, had everything to prove it, and I thought this would be something simple to solve, and would take a week at most.

I contacted support in the beginning and told them I needed help with the issue and asked if they could investigate deeper. They sent responses that told a lot, but ultimately answered nothing. This meaning that they would send me the same information that I’ve seen hundreds of times by now. This usually meant something along the lines of having 2FA on or changing security settings. I kept asking further and they replied annoyingly with botted messages that said the exact same thing as they just said. And whenever I asked a question of any importance, they would cut off the ticket.

This would have been fine if they weren’t the ones telling me to not send extra tickets. Picture someone cutting you off and then telling you not to keep asking. Another nice thing to note is that whenever I made other tickets and asked separate questions, I actually got answers. This was a temporary thing that didn’t end up lasting.

At the beginning of the issue I had only two goals: get my stuff back, get the culprit wiped out. Neither of them happened over the course of a year: the alternate account, the laundering account, and the main account of the person remained untouched [possibly because of a join date later than mine by roughly 3 years, in 2012.] Support ignored my requests to investigate, because of the group, audit logs, and ingame chat, they focused on the fact that I had posted three Discord pictures and highlighted that point instead of actually investigating. The goal of this thread is to inform others and to hopefully prevent this from happening to anyone. Reform is the only thing that can possibly change this ineffective moderation.

Slowly but surely, they ignored my emails. So I sought out other forms to contact them. I went to BBB (Better Business Bureau) and got some form of contact, albeit temporarily. They answered my emails again for a short period of time before outright ignoring me again. I went on alternate email addresses and had some questions answered that I previously could not get answered on my main email - proving that everyone gets treated the same, whether it’s a kid calling hacks or a new developer, until moderators add notes to an account that basically marks them down as persona non grata, and will not get anything answered. I sent a letter to Roblox HQ and got an automated letter back. It was nice, but it really answered none of the questions I posed in the beginning of this.

As of today, they don’t even answer my emails anymore. They even play with me, essentially trolling, when they “ensure your account security” by resetting your password and logging out of all sessions, before ghosting you again and ignoring all further messages, basically just handing inconveniences out. Meanwhile, regarding issues that aren’t even related, they delay those responses that they receive from me [proven when multiple other emails were used to show that they were delaying me by 2-3 days for showing something like a past Transaction] and they still hold me in contempt by not answering my questions or taking a heavy wait period before doing so. If there was a bingo book or blacklist somewhere, I am fairly certain I am on that list.

I have a multitude of tickets and copypastas I was sent. The “go away” message always ends up like this:

Hello there,
We’re sorry but we’re unable to provide you with any further information or response regarding this inquiry. We encourage you to review the previous information sent to you as we have provided you with all that we can at this time.
However, if you need further assistance with a different matter, please don’t hesitate to let us know using our support form.

I have been trying to work with these people for an entire school year. I currently suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and hearing the person’s name or the games that they are affiliated with acts as a trigger. Some of you might consider this a petty act or call me an insufferable person, but none of you have known what it’s like to have a fermenting issue slowly grow for a year. I don’t have a steady source of Robux coming into my account nor direct lines to Roblox staff or community. I have also been “gaslighting” myself - in which I begin to doubt myself and question my memories and judgement - because of the neglect that has been inflicted.

For those of you who want to know how to avoid getting an important ticket sent to a permanent limbo: don’t press questions on them, avoid asking anything important, and act like they’re always right.

In summary: my account was compromised and I tried to get my stuff back and the malicious user banned, none of which happened and led to constant ghosting, trolling, and neglect.

While some of you might have buoys you can always catch onto, or a lifeboat that will eventually come and save you, I have been stuck in an ocean full of Roblox Support for a year. The only thing I can hope for right now is to calm the ocean. Moderation is in dire need of an overhaul and this cannot go on. I have no Support agent knowing my name, no game to recover my Robux, and am essentially just a normal person dealing with a Hydra that ghosts, trolls, and neglects.

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you actually are.”

  • Niccolò Machiavelli

image
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Note: The 10+ are actual threads. It’s either a one-sided argument or incessant trolling.

64 Likes
#68

Before you comment this isn’t related to development, it is. (read complete post and replies)
Assets get moderated for terrible reasons and games get taken down for days or weeks because of 1 inappropriate model. A lot of artists and developers have experienced being moderated for little to no reason or because the moderation is just awful. Some people can’t afford to have their assets being moderated for no reason.

I was inspired to create this topic because I visited a game where bypassed audios and images are posted. I witnessed an image posted of a girls face (multiple photos) and nudes (multiple photos) and beside this, her social medias and ACTUAL address. To me, she looked younger and is probably underage because well, it’s roblox. I have never felt more disgusted and not only was this terrible enough, but I saw other girls’ too. People were laughing. Let’s not forget roblox is a childrens game.

While that may seem more offtopic, the combination of these two is COMPLETELY CRITICAL. How can roblox’s moderation/algorithm moderate some outfits for showing shoulder or even completely appropriate A-OK images but allow porn? These images are being posted in some of our games where children play. This leaves younger players to be vulnerable to predators and our games at the mercy of the media. We will all suffer.

I completely understand that this is bypassing but these images are being posted near children and if viewed by a parent, roblox could absolutely have a huge PR nightmare on their hands. Most parents will stop their child from playing and this completely cripples their fanbase and if this happens, developers WILL suffer financially.
Moderate our work for no reason but allow probable CP? As if actual porn wouldn’t be bad enough?

What are your thoughts on this and do you think there will ever be a solution to stuff like this or should developers begin to prepare themselves for their games to be associated with this behavior and some suffer financially ? Should this type of issue get out into the media, we will all suffer. Perhaps developers whose career is studio could go homeless. It takes 1 person to show this to the media to bring everything down. (Whoever is flagging this post constantly— just stop. It has been deemed fine by mods and was split into a same topic)

49 Likes
#69

I completely agree.
This needs to change. I feel like us developers will have to suffer from others terrible actions and get us in trouble.

17 Likes
#70

I totally agree with you. ROBLOX Moderation needs to change their moderation ways completely. They did say in RDC 2020 that they’re going to do a moderation overhaul, so let’s hope they fix that soon. However, on the other end, it’s a pretty hard task to do. ROBLOX has to moderate about hundreds assets every day, so they have to have some type of bot. So innocent things can get banned, and content that is not good sometimes, might slip away.

17 Likes
#71

Roblox has over 1.5 billion accounts, it is impossible to moderate every single asset that gets uploaded without the use of an auto moderation bot. While I understand that it is frustrating to have an asset declined, the most you will get is a warning (in most cases).

Overtime as moderation bots get more advanced, less of these assets will get through the moderation and less false positives will occur.

20 Likes
How do I not get moderated for uploading perfectly fine textures?
#72

A moderation overhaul is desperately needed. I’m not sure their current system, but it’s broken.

Why do mods waste time prosecuting people for buying and selling limiteds, a 99% harmless practice overall?

Why is chat censored to hell while pornographic images regularly get through the moderation?

Why are developers and YouTubers terminated for seemingly nothing?

Why is reporting useless 99% of the time?

Why is Roblox email support useless?

Obviously it’s very hard to moderate such a large platform. Automation is needed but until that AI is intelligent enough to have 99.9% success rates, flags should be approved by a human, how feasible this would be, I have no clue.

24 Likes
#73

Another Roblox moderation rant :confused:

Apparently Roblox is a huge platform, so huge that manpower alone can’t moderate the entire platform. Crazy, right?

Realize that there will sometimes be mistakes due to this and some inappropriate content might slip through and normal content might innocently get declined. But inappropriate content gets dealt with fairly quickly.

13 Likes
#74

I have to disagree with this part, as the Roblox moderators take down many of those inappropriate games very quickly. Many of these games are being created every minute or so and the Roblox moderators are trying very hard to get rid of them. Roblox would never allow pornography on their site, as it is against the Roblox Terms of Service.

I’ve never seen one of these games been discussed about on the Roblox platform (Twitter, YouTube, Discord) nor have I come across one of these games?

Although I do think that the Roblox moderation system isn’t the best, they are human, after all.

3 Likes
#75

I do realize it but anyone who has a basic understanding of robox’s current moderation and algorithm can see that it could be improved. Instead of complaining about another moderation topic, push for change as it is absolutely possible that it can be improved. I stated in my post multiple times how it is linked to development and how it can affect developers… I am not asking for every single account to be moderated or every asset to be moderated. I am asking for a better moderation system for the better of our community and so that we developers don’t suffer. Kill the problem before it gets worse.

@Piggeni I have seen many of the same audio and images around for weeks or months… they do not get taken down quickly and their algorithm or bots do not recognize certain images to be inappropriate. People are darkening images and putting emojis on them so they can be recognized as appropriate and I had reported an image that showed JUST nudity that was up for 2 months.
The game is not focused on harmful images or audios but has been notorious for it.

the thing is is that they’re not human, they’re bots and algorithms haha.
TL;DR not asking for a complete revamp or asking for something that’s unreasonable. I’m aware it’s not all images that areharmful but there is a large portion and this associates our games with this type of nasty behavior as well…

6 Likes
#77

I think bypassing filters and breaking the ToS all across the Internet is to be expected. You can never completely eliminate this problem, unfortunately. Although, I will admit, I’ve never heard of games putting pictures like the one’s you described in them. But if that’s what’s happening in some games, that’s completely unacceptable. Roblox takes such care to censor swear words and numbers(numbers mostly for anyone under 13. anyone above that has slightly more capabilities when typing numbers), surely they can afford to try to fix something this serious. Pictures like those can ruin people’s lives.

To Roblox's Defense...

However, again, I understand that you can’t fully fix this problem. There will always be new ways of bypassing the filter that people discover and share with others. While Roblox Mods can patch these loopholes as quickly as possible, in the end of the day, people will continue to bypass in new ways. And with the understandable use of bots (with over a billion users and less than 600 employees at Roblox, bearing in mind that not all 600 are Moderators, it’s very difficult to effectively moderate without some bots), it should be expected that there are some flaws in the system. All Roblox can do is try to fix these flaws before they cause too many issues for people. I believe that Roblox is working hard to make sure that they have an efficient moderation system. But again, it is hard with so many players and so few human moderators in comparison.

Unfair Moderation

In terms of unfairly moderating games that have only 1 inappropriate model or something, I agree with this point that you made. I have not had the experience of having my whole game being put under review, but I do upload my own decals to put in these games, which is the closest thing I have gone through in comparison. Sometimes, I may accidentally spell something wrong or have a picture of two people holding hands or with small words (which is understandable because small words is a popular way to bypass), and I get a warning for it. While sometimes I understand why I get moderated, sometimes I’m just confused. This goes back to the thing about the flaws in the system, but Roblox could try spending more time taking down those serious pictures you mentioned instead of moderating a simple picture of two people who are holding hands with the reasoning that “it depicts a relationship, which is against the ToS” or something.

Summary (for those who don't want to read everything...)

To wrap this up, I agree with what you are saying completely. But I also understand why Roblox doesn’t have necessarily the most perfect moderation system. It is hard for Roblox mods to effectively moderate everything that needs to be moderated without the use of bots, considering there are over a billion users and less than 600 moderators working at Roblox. And with the use of bots, you can expect some flaws in the system. Roblox has to deal with patching loopholes that users find and improve the moderation as a whole. I do believe that those images you saw are disgusting and can seriously ruin that girl’s life, and Roblox should focus on fixing huge issues like that, instead of handing out warnings and bans to people who upload innocent pictures, clothes, or games to the platform. This topic of Roblox moderation needing to be fixed has been on people’s minds for a while now, and I would like to hope that Roblox is constantly finding ways to improve moderation, but after so long, I understand that many people are getting impatient and tired of waiting for it to get better.

4 Likes
#78

And how do you suggest Roblox fixes their bot? So far this is just a rant.

Your post unnecessarily exaggerates the problem and leverages fear.

I honestly can’t say this has happened as frequent as you are making it out to be. Maybe 2-3 years ago it was but you can’t say moderation hasn’t improved.

And also a reminder: discussion is for

Not sure how this relates to development itself but okay.

2 Likes
#79

Roblox, Powering Moderation

In all seriousness I got warned over uploading the default animation rig that was made by Roblox

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#80

I get it, but sometimes it’s not really ROBLOX’s fault. There’s over 1 billion accounts on the platform, and only 600 ROBLOX employees. So moderating about hundreds of assets every day is pretty hard to do.

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#81

I guess your right. My solution is to hire more moderation.

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#82

I wouldn’t have a suggestion as I have no education in bots but if their moderation is this poor, it can certainly change. This is a plea as I don’t want developers to suffer.
I have photos of the problem. Even if I censored it, it’d be too inappropriate to be put here.

You aren’t seeing the problem then.

At least read the post before complaining… I have seen many of these images, itis not just one issue.
@BlueViolet7 I agree. These images can also ruin peoples lives. Childrens lives.

Post got flagged by community even though it’s related to developers as we will be the ones who are associated with this behavior and will suffer as a result of their moderation tactics. Explaining why I made the post is not offtopic. This was not a rant as I had explained the issue, why i’m making the post, the past of moderation and asked for opinions and potential solutions (even though it will never be completely eradicated)

5 Likes