Comment on To Catch a Predator's Chris Hansen Planning Roblox Documentary, It's Claimed
tane69@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Reddit r/games thread about this is overwhelmingly shitting on Hansen and defending Roblox. Unsurprising from the home of r/jailbait I guess
What blows my mind is the child predation isn’t even half the problem with Roblox. Gambling with real cash, child labor, black market for digital content.
It’s an absolutely dumpster fire of problems, and yet balatro is the one the EU cracks down on.
What’s better than hiring some third world worker to do the work for 1/6 the price? Getting a child to do it for free!
I don’t use reddit, but tbf roblox is what you make of it. My kids enjoy the heck out of it. There’s the same issues with most games - exploiting the users for profits with micro transactions or whatever and the dangers of lousy people in chat. The real issue is that Roblox has become a mecca for kids and that attracts more of the worst aspects I mentioned.
I hate to say it but parents gotta parent. Roblox offers decent parental controls. I employed them and relaxed them as my kids got older, and check in on what they’re playing. Problem is parents treat games like babysitters and then get upset when their hiring policy is leaving the front door open and bad people walk in.
Reddit has really plummeted in quality in recent years. And I mean the quality of its’ users, among other things.
There’s a definite sweet spot for a subreddit/social media instance/online community whatever your verbiage. Once you get over around 10- 15k people quality of community goes slowly downhill
I would argue against that. You can keep the quality up even with larger sizes but you need focused moderation and some level of distinction between sub-communities (e.g. large forums of old would have special rules/culture for certain sections).
In defense of the generally indefensible masses of reddit, Hansen is hardly a figure above criticism. Fetishizing vigilante justice, embracing of the far-right, his emphasis on spectacle without regard for the community, that time where they more or less killed a guy… Child molesters are horrible (tho why we keep electing them, I’ll never know), but we don’t need to hail and laud someone as our champion just because they agree.
Hansen’s documentary has an opportunity to shed light on online grooming as a pervasive problem endemic to all online spaces but instead appears to further his usual moral panic about how there’s people lurking behind every bush, waiting to nab your children. His productions have never been better than any other schlock reality television, but with a veneer of legitimacy from his LARPing with law enforcement. Targeting a popular piece of pop culture, instead of an expose on say grooming rings on discord or the constant abuses of children from religious institutions or the ever-increasing access children have to unmoderated interaction seems to be as morally vapid as he ever has been.
Hansen is generally more of a grifter these days to be fair. And even back in the heyday of the show, it had a lot of issues both legal and just moral. I really feel weird about this kind of predator catching stuff being made as entertainment.
I think it brings awareness. Which is needed to change the culture. I do think it’s weird to gain financially but I don’t think it’s the only “benefit” of making a show.
Historically the kind of awareness it brings is less constructive information on the problems with these websites, and more on the line of unhelpful paranoia.
it’s televised vigilante justice.
It’s because Reddit is making pedofiles great again and you will be shadow banned if you disagree
Also I’d have to guess that a non insignificant number of Redditors would be targets of Hansen if he does this. Just going off of history and patterns
I got banned from r/gaming when I talked shit about pedos.
So yes. You are right.
shadowedcross@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Shitting on Hansen I can understand, but defending Roblox? It’s no grand conspiracy that it’s riddled with predators, it’s an actual fact, so that’s kinda disgusting.
buddascrayon@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
A bigger problem is the predatory behavior of the company that owns Roblox. You can teach kids how to wall themselves off from the pedos on that site but you can’t really protect them from the company that runs it. Short of keeping them off it all together… Which is what I do.