• frongt@lemmy.zip
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    24 days ago

    Newton: I mean, look, Dave, I can tell you’re getting a little bit frustrated here.

    Baszucki: I’m actually not frustrated. I just, I’m so excited to talk — I thought we were going to be talking about fun, funny things in the industry and all of that. So I’m not frustrated, I’m just kind of figuring out how much fun time I have with you guys and how much fun time we have versus kind of this superfocus. But I’m happy to talk about whatever you guys want.

    “I don’t want to talk about our predator problem, I want to talk about getting kids on our platform”

    Guy sounds like a predator exploiting kids himself.

    • KelvarCherry
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      24 days ago

      Silicon Valley has always been pioneered by rapists. SV has always been about breaking boundaries and coercing consent

      The company itself preys on children. The largest developers prey on children. It’s not always the body that predators are after. It often is the vulnerability and naivety.

  • Baggie@lemmy.zip
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    24 days ago

    Maybe I’ve already had an aneurysm and this reality is merely a terrible delusion borne of that.

    • lath@piefed.social
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      24 days ago

      Reality is that ethics are subjective restrictions we place on ourselves and each other. When these restrictions aren’t maintained, the choice of harming another for one’s self benefit loses its inherent consequencial dread.

      Those who don’t fear the results of their actions cannot weigh the possible risks involved. And when there are no risks seen, only the possible benefits remain.

  • Hegar@fedia.io
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    24 days ago

    A large community of child predators is a great opportunity - to expand roblox into a prestige networking site for the republican party.

  • sramder@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    Simulated underage children! We call them honey pots… you can add one to your kids account for an extra $50 a month.

  • maus@sh.itjust.works
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    24 days ago

    Lordy, I hate sensationalized editorial headlines. This is the actual quote.

    Asked by co-host Casey Newton how he thinks about the issue of child predators on his platform, the Roblox CEO said the issue wasn’t just a “problem, but an opportunity as well.”

    This is standard corpo/PR speak when addressing an issue, you refer to it as an “opportunity”, there’s an implied “to solve/address”.

    • vrek@programming.dev
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      24 days ago

      Reminds me of an old joke…

      Man goes to his boss and says “can we talk. I have a problem!”

      His boss gets mad and replies “I don’t want to hear about your problems. We are an opportunity based company. We don’t have problems we have opportunities to improve. Do you understand?”

      The man thinks and then replies “yeah, I get it.”

      “great now tell me what you wanted to talk about, and you better not use the word problem!”

      “well… Based on what you said, I have a huge drinking opportunity”

    • LiveLM@lemmy.zip
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      24 days ago

      Ludicrously bad wording, a CEO really should have realized that there’s situations corpo speak isn’t the right choice

      • chunkystyles@sopuli.xyz
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        23 days ago

        Unfortunately, CEOs are really only good for one thing. Saying nothing by spouting a bunch of corporate jargon.

    • stray@pawb.social
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      23 days ago

      Full interview question and answer, just for fullness of context:

      Newton: You have joined us today to talk about this new age-gating policy that Roblox is rolling out to protect kids. And I think we should start by just talking about the scope of the problem here. What has led you to this point? And how do you think of the problem of predators on Roblox?

      Baszucki: We think of it not necessarily just as a problem, but an opportunity as well. How do we allow young people to build, communicate and hang out together? How do we build the future of communication at the same time? So we, you know, we’ve been, I think in a good way, working on this ever since we started. And when we were — this was almost 18 or 19 years ago — when we first launched the company and we had just four of us sitting in a room, we were literally the moderators, like we would rotate all the time. And so fast-forward to where we are today, it’s just like every week, what is the latest tech? At the scale we’re at, 150 million daily actives, 11 billion hours a month, like what is the best way to keep pushing this forward? And as you correctly note, we’ve just started adding that we’re going to be using facial age estimation with A.I. to complement that.

      • spookedintownsville@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        Am I the only one that’s reading that over and over trying to find where he actually clarifies about it being an “opportunity”? It seems as though he just says that and starts talking nonsense.

      • julietOscarEcho@sh.itjust.works
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        23 days ago

        11 billion engagement hours a month! Does anyone seriously believe that lol. And still not profitable! What do they need, ever human beings every waking hour to spin a profit!?

        • maus@sh.itjust.works
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          23 days ago

          It comes out to be 73 hours over a month, per daily active. That’s about 2.5hrs daily, which doesn’t seem too far fetched considering it’s cross-platform and also a large mobile audience.

          • julietOscarEcho@sh.itjust.works
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            23 days ago

            A normal full time job including holiday is only ~140 hours a month. Assuming you believe their user stats too that would be pretty grim. You probably shouldn’t though.

      • hatorade@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        He didn’t answer how it’s click bait, he just downvoted you and me. I think he’s upset that child predators can’t get away with things.

    • hatorade@lemmy.world
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      23 days ago

      How is it click bait?

      Edit: You just downvoted me and didn’t answer, so you have none and just like talking.

        • hatorade@lemmy.world
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          23 days ago

          He’s a corpo huffer who loves to defend companies ran by pedophiles as far as I can tell.

          Makes sense when you look at his profile. Dude says anything a company wants him to.

      • stray@pawb.social
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        23 days ago

        Not the person you asked, but I think it’s clickbait because it presents the word without context in such a way as to provoke an emotional response. It sounds like maybe he thinks he can make money off of child predators. The subheading “Who said CEOs don’t have a sense of humor?” also implies that he said it jokingly.

        You can read the original interview here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/podcasts/hardfork-roblox-child-safety.html

        I think “CEO of Roblox downplays problem of child predators on the platform” or “CEO of Roblox dodges questions of child safety” very accurately describe how the interview went and are not misleading. (The original headline is kid gloves bullshit, and I’m not happy about that either.)

        e: Realized the Futurism article literally says “Baszucki didn’t downplay the issue of child exploitation as some might expect.” He did absolutely did at multiple points in the interview.

        • frongt@lemmy.zip
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          23 days ago

          It sounds like maybe he thinks he can make money off of child predators.

          That’s how it sounds in the full interview, too. He doesn’t explain, but that’s what it sounds like.