CEO of Roblox Corp. David Baszucki is in the spotlight today after recently uploading a New York Times interview about Hard fork podcast. Hosts Casey Newton and Kevin Roose supported Basuki on the topic of child safety at Roblox. This concern is fresh in the public eye after parents And state attorneys general sued the company for failing to prevent young users from falling prey to predators.
Basuki came on the podcast to discuss new age determination technologies was included in its moderation strategy, and continued to feud with Newton and Roose while defending the platform's security record.
“The situation has become tense,” reads the headline, which contains a transcript of the conversation. “Tension” may be underestimating it. Basutsky became more aggressive after Ruz asked about October 2024 a report by the now-defunct activist Hindenburg Research Foundation accusing the company of being “one hell of a child pedophile.”
“It's funny. Let’s continue,” Basutsky replied. “So first of all, the Hindenburg no longer exists, right? So you have to report it. For some reason they went bankrupt. Another thing is, have you researched this information?”
Basutsky continued to press the presenter about his own “research” Robloxefforts to ensure trust and safety, before returning to explain that artificial intelligence models are becoming more effective at moderating content, and then became sarcastic after asking Roose if he would “choose” these improved models.
“Okay, so you agree with what we did. High five,” he said, momentarily ignoring the subsequent questions. “Thank you for supporting our Roblox decision matrix… I'm so glad you guys agree with the way we run Roblox. High five… Is this a sneaky interview where you actually like everything we do and you're here to secretly support it?”
Basuki seemed eager to discuss prediction markets and other technical topics.
Some of Basuki's responses seem to indicate that he is annoyed at having to talk about moderation rather than other industry topics. Newton explained that they were told that Basuki wanted to come on the podcast to discuss new technology, but Basuki seemed to have a different understanding of the situation.
“I want to emphasize: I came here because I love your podcast and I came to talk about everything. So if our PR people said, “Let's talk about age restrictions for an hour,” I'm ready, but I love your podcast. I thought I came here to talk about everything.”
After Newton commented that he was “a little upset,” Basutsky denied that claim and again brought up his purpose for coming on the show. “I thought we were going to talk about fun, funny things in the industry and stuff like that. So I'm not upset, I'm just wondering how much fun I'm having with you guys and how much fun we're having compared to this super focus. But I’m happy to talk about whatever you guys want.”
He seemed more interested when addressing the topic of betting markets such as Polymarketand how they can predict outcomes better than journalists. He was open to introducing the experience of the forecast market into Roblox until they gave out Robux (Robloxin-game currency) or in-game items.
Throughout the interview, Basuki maintained that internal performance within the company Roblox to prove that it's an “amazing” platform for kids and that the company is constantly improving its safety features, thanks in part to artificial intelligence.
“I think we're doing an incredible job of innovating in terms of the number of people on our platform and the hours of operation, really future-proofing how it's going to work,” he said when asked if he thinks the company doesn't have problems with predators on the platform. Roblox.
At one moment he echoed comments made by Eurogamer earlier this year on the topic of parents' decisions to let their children play Roblox despite widespread safety concerns. “The parent is the ultimate arbiter of responsibility. And if a parent for whatever reason doesn’t like their child going to the park, doesn’t like their child playing with a certain toy, doesn’t feel comfortable playing Roblox, who am I to say, right?”
“I leave that up to the parents.”
The game developer turned to Roblox Corp. for comment on this story and will update it once the company responds.
