Roblox CEO interview gets heated over child safety

Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki joined The New York Times’ Hard Fork podcast to discuss the gaming platform’s new age-verification feature — but he seemed to get frustrated at the number of questions focused on child safety.

The interview began with Baszucki describing the feature, which will require all users to submit a face scan if they want to access Roblox’s messaging features. But by the time he was asked about a report claiming the company had prioritized growth over safety, Baszucki seemed to tire of the topic, responding, “Fun. Let’s keep going down this.”

And when co-host Kevin Roose agreed that one of the best ways for Roblox to improve child safety is to improve its AI models, Baszucki insisted, “Good, so you’re aligning with what we did. High-five.”

“And I want to highlight, I came here because I love your podcast and came to talk about everything,” he added. “So if our PR people said, ‘Let’s talk about age-gating for an hour,’ I’m up for it, but I love your pod. I thought I came here to talk about everything.”