Violent Extremist Exploitation of Roblox and Wider Gaming Ecosystems – GNET

In January 2025, a person named James Wesley Burger used Roblox—a platform designed for creativity and youth engagement—to overtly problem threats of ideologically motivated violent extremist assaults. The case illustrates a disturbing development: extremists seem to use Roblox to radicalise, recruit, and mobilise customers, elevating pressing questions on security on one of many world’s most popular gaming platforms.

While typically described as a sport, Roblox is extra precisely a platform—a inventive ecosystem the place builders and customers design their very own video games. Regardless of terminology, it has turn out to be one of the crucial extensively used gaming platforms, topping mobile charts and competing with Minecraft and Fortnite for desktop playtime.

Despite being an {industry} chief by way of belief and security and investing appreciable sources into platform security initiatives at a time when most digital platforms in any other case abandon it, Roblox is now not only a protected inventive house for predominantly the youth to take pleasure in, categorical, and develop. Recent years have additionally proven that extremists view Roblox as a lovely platform throughout the broader gaming universe, probably partly attributable to its monumental consumer reputation and design flexibility. Notably, extremists’ desire for Roblox has developed regardless of the corporate being one of the crucial dedicated gaming firms by way of trust and safety, highlighting the advanced nature of creating safe and protected social know-how platforms. 

This Insight discusses how gaming platforms have turn out to be engaging digital areas for extremists, focusing particularly on Roblox and up to date circumstances of extremist exploitation. This builds on a rising physique of analysis exhibiting that extremists throughout ideologies are constructing a presence on gaming and adjoining platforms akin to Steam, Discord, and, to a lesser extent, Minecraft. While gaps in knowledge stay, developments level to using these areas for propaganda dissemination, recruitment, mobilisation, and doubtlessly, fundraising.

In latest years, intelligence companies have warned about extremists’ use of Roblox and that they detect a dynamic of younger and younger individuals changing into radicalised. Similar dynamics have been evident in my very own work on how gaming and gaming-adjacent platforms are exploited by extremists, a theme that the GIFCT’s pool of specialists are at the moment scrutinising to supply the general public and the gaming firms with a greater understanding of the problem at hand.

Extremism on Roblox

One aspect that draws extremists to gaming is the power to create digital worlds resembling their ideological utopias—or to reenact real-world violence, such because the Christchurch capturing or the Islamic State’s caliphate. On some platforms, extremists depend on sport modifications (‘mods’) to inject ideology into gameplay. However, in open-design spaces like Roblox and Minecraft, they will construct ideological experiences from the bottom up. While such reenactment could be excused as foolish incidents with little real-world impression, there are additionally extra serious examples of extremists partaking youth in makes an attempt to use, radicalise and mobilise for motion. A number of notable examples spotlight this development.

In January 2023, Singapore’s authorities discovered {that a} 16-year-old was utilizing Roblox to have interaction with like-minded pro-Islamic State supporters. The boy was creating his personal propaganda materials that includes video sequences from Roblox – the final word instance of gamification. Being a member of quite a few Islamic State-themed servers with digital recreations of Islamic State governance in Syria and the Philippines, the Singaporean youth performed his digital function as a spokesperson for the pro-Islamic State neighborhood and even pledged allegiance to an in-game caliph throughout the Roblox house. They had, in truth, made a digital different world, self-sufficient and to some extent disconnected from real-world occasions.

While Roblox didn’t problem any remark addressing the Singaporean youth, one of many firm’s executives had commented on the rising extremist presence on the platform the yr prior. Remy Malan, Roblox’s VP of Trust and Safety, again then said that the corporate “abhor extremist ideologies and have zero tolerance for extremist content of any kind on Roblox. Because of the swift, proactive steps we take, extremist content is extremely rare on our platform and therefore, for the vast majority of the Roblox community who do not seek out such content, it is very unlikely they would be exposed to it…. We recognise that extremist groups are turning to a variety of tactics in an attempt to circumvent the rules on all platforms, and we are determined to stay one step ahead of them. We are deliberately agile in our efforts – we constantly strengthen the tools and filters we use to track down bad actors and expand the range of content blocked by our moderation systems.” However, the complexity of this process is highlighted by quite a few extra circumstances.

Two documented circumstances from Germany spotlight how Roblox can function an entry level within the radicalisation course of—notably for minors. In each circumstances, 12-year-old boys encountered far-right extremist content material whereas enjoying World War II-themed Roblox video games. Older gamers used Nazi symbolism in-game to construct belief, finally inviting the youngsters to Discord servers crammed with National Socialist propaganda, antisemitic rhetoric, and role-play mimicking Nazi hierarchies. While the ideological grooming escalated off-platform, the preliminary publicity and normalisation occurred on Roblox—demonstrating how extremists use shared gameplay to decrease psychological limitations and provoke radicalisation. These circumstances exemplify how extremists strategically exploit the social and thematic openness of Roblox, notably its attraction to youthful customers, to seed ideological affect and information weak people into extra tightly managed off-platform communities. 

The “Burger case” starkly illustrates how Roblox can be utilized not only for social interplay however as a major channel for expressing, testing, and escalating extremist beliefs. In January 2025, U.S. authorities arrested Texas resident James Wesley Burger after one other Roblox consumer reported his in-game threats of violence to the FBI. Using the account, Burger engaged in express discussions utilizing Roblox chat about planning assaults modelled after Islamic State techniques. Roblox logs revealed that he used the platform to explain potential targets—together with a Christian music competition—and voiced admiration for jihadist martyrdom, even referring to himself as a terrorist. According to the prison grievance, his chats included statements akin to “martyrdom or bust” and intentions to trigger terror. Investigators later confirmed his id utilizing IP and billing information from Roblox and in all equity, the corporate moved swiftly to help regulation enforcement’s investigation earlier than any real-world hurt may happen.

It is not only Islamic extremists showing to depend on Roblox as a medium to radicalise or exploit youth. As quite a few ongoing lawsuits point out, the extremist nihilistic community generally known as ‘764’ is following the same technique utilizing Roblox as a digital house to search out youth to use. According to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), that is true not just for Roblox but in addition for quite a few different gaming areas, together with Minecraft. A quickly rising community each in scale and geographical scope, the ‘764’ is notorious for concentrating on extraordinarily younger people as a result of adherents are additionally younger themselves. For this straightforward cause, platforms like Roblox with a young user group are doubtlessly engaging bases to recruit new followers.

Journalists have additionally uncovered the intensive presence of Proud Boys accounts on Roblox. Back in December 2023, the Australian Federal Police went so far as to problem an official warning to folks about how extremists are utilizing gaming platforms, highlighting Roblox specifically, to propagate and radicalise. Previous GNET analysis has additionally proven that Roblox comprises content material glorifying National Socialism and antisemitism. In addition, Roblox has additionally been accused of getting a severe problem with Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM).

Why Roblox?

Roblox isn’t the one platform going through these challenges, however it could be probably the most uncovered—largely due to its design and consumer demographics.

With over 100 million day by day lively customers (DAU), the platform stands out for the way younger its audience is: round 56% are underneath 16, and 20% are youthful than 9. Further, Roblox’s attraction lies in its customisability. It permits customers to construct their very own video games, avatars, environments, and interactions, making it very best for fostering creativity—but in addition ripe for abuse by actors seeking to form ideology inside immersive digital areas. 

As talked about, Roblox is just not an precise sport, however a platform that permits customers to create their very own video games, or ‘experiences’, that at the moment includes greater than five million lively video games. This ‘creative space’ imaginative and prescient is precisely what makes Roblox stand out and what makes it engaging each from a developer and consumer perspective. The platform is extra dynamic and customizable than different gaming platforms, which permits extremists of varied ideological orientations to develop and customise video games, options, and cosmetics (skins, avatars, gear and so forth) that align with one’s ideological worldview. 

As an interesting platform, Roblox gives a variety of options – notably in its design – that make it an interesting hub for extremists within the gaming house for the next causes: 

•  It has numerous customers that extremists can try to recruit, socialise, radicalise, and mobilise; 
• Its younger consumer base gives a extra weak group which some extremist networks have a desire for, and; 
• The dynamic and customisable choices on the platform permit extremists to construct digital spheres resembling their ideological utopias, which strengthen socialisation processes and performance as a facilitating think about recruitment and radicalisation.

Roblox is making an attempt to repair the issue. But will it succeed?

The scale of Roblox’s problem is cemented by just a few numbers. The platform has greater than 100 million DAU, covers hundreds of thousands of video games, and processes greater than “50,000 chat messages every second.” Every day, the Roblox neighborhood sends 6.1 billion chat messages on common whereas producing 1.1 million hours of voice communication. This leaves the corporate within the sophisticated scenario of making an attempt to execute profitable belief and security moderation at an exceptionally excessive scale. 

Like most different massive social media (SoMe) and gaming platforms, Roblox faces issues implementing an efficient community standard coverage and terms of service. Arguably, the best problem comes within the type of monitoring an infinite quantity of textual content and voice, in several languages and dialects, in actual time. Yet, because the circumstances above spotlight, merely detecting communication and designs that violate inner insurance policies proves difficult, thus calling for exceptionally clear inner definitions and classifiers of what constitutes extremist discourse and motion. Further suggestions are delineated within the last part of this Insight.

In taking an industry-wide method, nonetheless, Roblox seems dedicated to conserving its platform protected from consumer hurt. It has simply accessible phrases of use, together with its community standards that explicitly prohibit any “behavior that incites, condones, supports, glorifies, or promotes any terrorist or extremist organization or individual (foreign or domestic), and their ideology, or actions.” The phrases additionally embrace a zero-tolerance coverage for the exploitation of minors, prohibition of on-line threats, bullying, and hate speech. It even goes so far as together with off-platform behaviour, which isn’t {industry} normal.

As a part of the brand new obligations underneath the EU’s Digital Services Act, Roblox is now issuing a yearly Transparency Report detailing the platform’s ongoing efforts to make it a safer on-line house. This contains content material moderation, each the automated and human evaluation processes. The firm claims that its “ML [machine learning] models detect policy-violating text, images, speech, audio, and 3D content comprehensively across Roblox; this content is reviewed by both our automated and manual systems. These models are trained on Roblox-specific language and abbreviations, and are able to consider the context of potential violations that would likely be missed by other, non-Roblox-specific, ML models.” While in concept this sounds daring and reassuring, real-life examples present Roblox’s fashions would possibly seize some, however not all, neighborhood normal violations.

In late 2024, Roblox launched a major overhaul of its security programs and parental controls. Parents can now remotely handle settings, monitor display screen time, and consider pal lists. For customers underneath 13, Roblox has restricted direct messaging and launched a four-tier maturity mannequin to raised handle age-appropriate content material. More than 30 safety-related options had been launched that yr alone. That quantity has already reached 100 in 2025 and contains the introduction of ‘Sentinel’, a brand new AI system serving to to detect early indicators of kid endangerment, thus exhibiting the corporate’s dedication to do higher.

Conclusion and Recommendations 

The low-prevalence however high-impact circumstances explored on this Insight underline the good complexity of coping with belief and security at massive social and gaming platforms. With extremists evolving their strategies and concentrating on more and more youthful customers, security measures have to be proactive, adaptive, and deeply embedded into platform structure. Roblox’s problem is just not solely one in all scale, however of design—the very options that make the platform interesting to younger customers and builders additionally create pathways for ideological exploitation. Addressing this duality might be key to safeguarding its future. 

Having well-defined insurance policies which can be consistently up to date and evolving is a foundational step. The actual problem is available in implementing coverage transgressions with such a excessive quantity of content material and interactions. It essentially includes automated programs to observe and detect all textual content and voice chat, ideally in actual time. Such a system must be superior sufficient to know all of the intricacies of extremist discourse and symbolism, have a built-in understanding of typical processes akin to radicalisation and recruitment, and the power to scan voice chat in quite a few languages, dialects, and slang. While that feels like an infinite problem in technical functionality and subject material experience already, it doesn’t cease there. With extremism and extremist modes of on-line engagement consistently evolving, so too should belief and security practices and capabilities. 

The circumstances highlighted on this Insight should not nearly people; they spotlight the distinctive vulnerabilities of Roblox as a platform. The mixture of real-time social options, younger consumer demographics, and the platform’s design flexibility creates an surroundings the place extremist rhetoric may be launched, normalised, and operationalised with alarming ease. As with different circumstances involving Islamic State sympathisers and extremist networks like ‘764’, Burger’s use of Roblox reveals how the platform is more and more serving as each an ideological playground and a recruitment vector—not regardless of, however due to its inventive openness and youthful attraction. Roblox’s belief and security problem, then, is just not solely about scale, however about how the very structure of the platform may be prevented from being co-opted for extremist ends.

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Dr. Tore Refslund Hamming is Director of Refslund Analytics, a boutique consultancy specializing in belief and security, on-line extremism and counter-terrorism. For greater than a decade, Dr. Hamming has labored on points associated to radicalization and counter-terrorism each as a researcher, guide, and as an intelligence supervisor. He is a present member of GIFCT’s working group on Addressing Youth Radicalization and Mobilization and a member of the Christchurch Call Advisory Network.

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