The company alleges that the YouTuber encouraged and engaged in unlawful acts designed to harm Roblox and its users

The Roblox Corporation, the company behind the popular video game Roblox, wants to take a controversial YouTuber to court for allegedly negatively affecting its business.

The Roblox Corporation this week filed a lawsuit against Benjamin Robert Simon, a YouTuber known as “Ruben Sim”. And, in the legal action filed in a California court, the company alleges that he is the leader of a “cyber mob” that “maliciously, fraudulently and oppressively commits and encourages unlawful acts designed to harm Roblox and its users”.

Simon has been making videos on Roblox since 2010. However, although he has been banned from the platform for several years, he is reportedly still accessing the service and engaging in disturbing behaviour that prompted the developers to file the lawsuit.

In fact, Roblox accuses Simon of posting “false and misleading terrorist threats to dissuade Roblox users from participating in in-person and online events”, threatening to replicate the 2018 attack on YouTube’s home base on Roblox premises, and committing a series of platform use violations ranging from creating fake accounts and profiles to continue accessing the game after his ban, to “engaging in sexual conversation with users, discussing sexual acts, engaging in sexual harassment, singling out users and groups for ridicule or abuse, attempting to upload a nude image of himself with only a lampshade covering his genitals, using racial and homophobic slurs, creating and using inappropriate accounts with sexual names, attempting to upload a sexual game, attempting to upload pictures of Hitler, and using prolific profanity,” the lawsuit states. All in addition to harassing Roblox employees and executives.

The Roblox Corporation expects Simon to pay about $1.6 million for the damages he allegedly caused the company (including the cancellation of an event due to his threats) and also seeks “injunctive relief prohibiting him from engaging in similar illegal and harmful activity”.

Roblox is a platform that primarily targets children, so clearly, this type of behaviour by some individuals is worrying. It adds to the list of questions that The Roblox Corporation has faced over the last few issues, such as content moderation and the potentially harmful effects of its profit offerings for young players.

Source: latercera