MENLO PARK, CA — Roblox confirmed today that it has permanently banned vigilante groups from its platform, citing their “disturbing” habit of dressing up as digital Batmen, impersonating minors, and luring alleged predators into sting operations that looked suspiciously like Dateline NBC reruns.
“We appreciate that some players want to help,” said a Roblox spokesperson while gently stapling a poster reading REPORT, DON’T ROLEPLAY to the wall. “But when you spend three weeks undercover as a fake 12-year-old, lure a guy to a fake Chuck E. Cheese you built in Studio, and then livestream the confrontation on TikTok — that’s technically a Terms of Service violation.”
Roblox emphasized that its custom-designed reporting tools are a better way to handle abuse than what it called “cosplaying as Chris Hansen.” The company reminded users that its safety team receives over 1 billion reports a year, “roughly half of which are just kids snitching on each other for saying ‘poop.’”
The banned vigilantes, for their part, claim Roblox has gone soft. “We were basically the Avengers of child safety,” said one exiled player, still wearing a trench coat and fake mustache from his last sting. “Now the predators get to stay on the platform until a grown-up clicks the right flag icon.”
Roblox concluded its statement by assuring players that the platform remains safe and civil — statistically speaking. “Every day, 111.8 million users send 6.1 billion chat messages. Only a tiny fraction involve explicit offers to meet up in a Walmart parking lot,” the company said. “And we’d like to keep it that way — without the Batman cosplay, thanks.”