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A recent report has brought to light a distressing online community within the popular gaming platform Roblox, where users are engaged in reenacting real-life murders. This disturbing trend includes the digital recreation of tragic school shootings, allowing players to simulate these horrific events within the widely used free-to-play game.
Disturbing “True Crime” Roleplay in Roblox
On April 21st, the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Center on Extremism released a detailed report exposing these digital simulations of school shootings. These user-generated games, a common feature of the Roblox platform, are developed and shared using the game’s built-in tools. A group identified as Active Shooter Studios (A.S.S.) is reportedly behind many of the most prevalent school shooting simulator experiences.
Active Shooter Studios and Mass Shooting Recreations
A.S.S. has allegedly developed Roblox environments and online games that replicate mass shooting events, including those at Uvalde, Parkland, and Columbine. “Carbine,” a particularly popular creation by the studio, is a Roblox recreation of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. This digital space allows players to assume the roles of the perpetrators and replay the tragic incident that resulted in numerous deaths and injuries.
Detailed and Disturbing Game Features
According to the ADL report, these Roblox maps are more than just basic representations of real-world locations. They incorporate unsettlingly detailed elements. One Roblox experience, simulating the 2022 Uvalde shooting, reportedly includes non-player characters (NPCs) designed to resemble children who react to gunfire by hiding and feigning death.
Many of these user-created experiences conclude with the arrival of in-game police. At this point, players are presented with options to engage in a final confrontation or simulate suicide.
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Roblox’s Attempts to Moderate Content
Active Shooter Studios has faced challenges in maintaining the availability of their maps on Roblox. The platform actively removes these games when they are reported or detected by internal moderation systems. To circumvent these restrictions, A.S.S., which operates a Discord server with over 500 members, has reportedly turned to private Roblox servers, often behind a paywall, to host their content. This tactic is intended to make it more difficult for Roblox moderators to identify and remove these games, which are alleged to violate multiple community guidelines.
White Supremacy Links Within the Community
Bloomberg reported that Roblox removed one of A.S.S.’s groups, which had over 800 members, after the ADL brought it to their attention. The report also detailed witnessing a game instance where players gathered outside a virtual Columbine High School, chanting the white supremacist slogan “You will not replace us.” The ADL highlights white supremacy as a significant element within the school shooting community on Roblox.
Despite Roblox‘s removal of the Columbine recreation, Bloomberg notes that a new mass shooting game from A.S.S. quickly surfaced, attracting over 1,000 visits before its subsequent removal. This illustrates the ongoing challenge of policing this type of harmful content.
Concerns of Extremist Content Exposure
The ADL report warns that these games, particularly those recreating extremist-related mass shootings like the 2022 Buffalo shooting targeting Black individuals, can act as a gateway to extremist content. Players may be inclined to seek further information about these violent events, potentially leading them to manifestos or videos created by the attackers. The report further suggests a risk of exposure to accelerationist white supremacist content that glorifies these perpetrators and seeks to incite others to similar acts of violence.
Roblox, Discord, and TikTok have stated to Bloomberg that they are actively engaged in removing content that focuses on or glorifies extremism or violent crimes. Despite these efforts, the article indicates that videos related to “Carbine” and other digital school shooting recreations remain discoverable on these platforms. YouTube and Reddit reportedly declined to comment.
Roblox boasts a daily user base of over 80 million active users, many of whom are children and teenagers. The platform has faced prior criticism regarding its ability to ensure user safety amidst its rapid growth. Furthermore, Roblox has been criticized for alleged exploitation of child creators who contribute significantly to the game’s content. The platform is set to mark its 20th anniversary next September.
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