Recently, some Roblox players have been conducting virtual Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. There have been Roblox players dressed as ICE agents that barged into other player’s houses. They have “arrested” a user hiding in his kitchen and chased down another player while conducting “Border Patrol” surveillance. Roblox ICE agents hunted down a young player in his Roblox home, banging his door down.

Tensions reached a boiling point, and last week — as thousands took to the streets to protest ICE in the offline world — Roblox players protested within the game, battling cops, breaking down barricades, waving Mexican flags, and facing off across a line of players dressed in police SWAT gear.

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      20 hours ago

      I’m so confused. Are “police” in this context game mods? Other users role playing as police? Or is this saying real life police made roblox accounts to go shoot children protesters in a video game?

      I only ask because we live in the dumbest timeline, where I could totally believe this could happen.

  • Optional@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    42
    ·
    1 day ago

    Simon Gutierrez, a 17-year-old high school student who organized yesterday’s Roblox protest against ICE, said that he wanted to attend the IRL “No Kings” protests this past weekend, but his older sister said no. So he staged a protest on Roblox to allow other young people to make their voices heard. “A lot of young people really want to protest and put their words and beliefs out there but are unable to, so this is the only thing we can turn to,” Gutierrez said.

    The ICE protests in Roblox have primarily taken place in Brookhaven, a massively multiplayer role‑playing experience on Roblox. The experience’s name is based on the real city of Brookhaven, GA, where offline ICE raids and protests are also taking place. Last Thursday, police arrested six peopleinvolved in anti-ICE protests in the IRL Brookhaven.

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    21 hours ago

    So not knowing Roblox very well, how does this work?is this like Minecraft?

    I thought Roblox was more like a platform with hundreds of different mini games?

    • rowinxavier@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      21 hours ago

      Essentially correct. Roblox has a sort of central platform, the basic stuff which determines how interacting works, how things can look, what defines objects etc, and then it has things that run on top of that, so specific games with rules, different experiences within that base platform.

      For example, you may want to play a spiderman kind of webslinging game. The rules for shooting your web and attaching to buildings along with how swinging works are all handled by the custom code, but the core of how the game looks, multiplayer conections, state saving, and so on are all handled by the outer game logic.

      So all these people dressing as ice agents may be running around in other peoples games and using in game capabilities to block them from moving, to harass them, and to grief them. The other players can ban the ICE agent players from their game but is is exhausting and the disruption is real.

      The more shared spaces, the large public rooms, is where you would do something like protest. You could take all the players who are griefing with ICE outfits and make it clear they are not welcome, unpopular, and just plain annoying. It may or may not work, but it is good the kids are not just accepting it and moving on. The kids are all right.

  • BroBot9000@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    arrow-down
    7
    ·
    1 day ago

    Gosh you have to be the most pathetic creature on this planet to want to roll play as the scum of the earth.

    • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      44
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 day ago

      Um.

      1. Cops and Robbers
      2. Cowboys and Indians
      3. Cosplayers who LARP as villains (e.g. Storm Troopers, Vader, Palpatine, etc).

      This is not a new thing, it’s just adapted to the digital age.

      • gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        1 day ago

        In those games, there’s an element of consent because you agree to playing. Here, people are dressing up as cops and going aggro on random players.

        • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
          cake
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          9
          ·
          21 hours ago

          Here, people are dressing up as cops and going aggro on random players.

          So basically the exact same thing that’s happening IRL.

          • gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            7
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 day ago

            Well, I actually am, but I’m also a 30-year-old man who grew up online and has a young niece and nephew. Let’s try different examples:

            • Playing RuneScape or WoW doesn’t mean you want to play raids.
            • Playing a cop in cops and robbers doesn’t mean you can arrest other kids in the playground who aren’t playing robbers.
            • cm0002@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              edit-2
              1 day ago

              Hey, I’m doing armor trims for free! We just gotta go to my spot in wildy, rq

          • BroBot9000@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            edit-2
            1 day ago

            Yes and that’s a behaviour that should be taught out at a certain age. These are not only children but also adults roll playing this kind of bigotry. Look at the many RP servers that are dedicated to military wanking.

      • BroBot9000@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        1 day ago

        Yes and half of what you said are games for children who don’t understand the greater complexity of the world.

        I’m not convinced that people who willingly LARP as soldiers and other real life boot licking shitheads are fully there in the head.

        Fictional characters aside what the fuck is wrong with you wanting to pretend to be the bigot that rounds up minorities.

          • BroBot9000@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 day ago

            I’ve had multiple people in person tell me about how their 40k friends were basically on the cusp of Nazi rhetoric last time they hung out.

            So yes, I’m absolutely in agreement with you.

          • FerretyFever0@fedia.io
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            1 day ago

            I’ve only played Fallout 4 (allied with Railroad) and Fallout New Vegas (allied with NCR, just met BOS). Are they really that bad? I know they want to take everyone’s toasters and whatnot.

            • You won’t get the full experience and context without playing 1, 2 and Tactics. But they are still very much xenophobic in NV and 4. They practiced eugenics, they conscript new blood through slavery, and they are also hypocrites about how technology should be used.

              • FerretyFever0@fedia.io
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                22 hours ago

                Oh shit, that’s crazy. Aren’t they the good guys in 3? I remember something about different chapters having wildly different beliefs.

                • cjoll4@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  ·
                  18 hours ago

                  They’re the good guys in Fallout 3 in the sense that they’ve taken it upon themselves to provide clean water and protect people from super mutants. They’re also the bad guys in the sense that they make no attempt to discern sapient ghouls from feral ghouls; they shoot all mutants on sight. And of course their chapter had a civil war so there is a splinter faction present in Fallout 3 that clings to the old isolationist tech-hoarder ways.

                • The group in 3 broke away from the main BoS for… Reasons. But they were still xenophobic bigots. They just were nicer to non-mutants and wanted to help with the water thing (the only thing “good” about them in 3).

    • Aatube@kbin.melroy.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      24 hours ago

      they’re doing this to spread awareness of a big agency being the scum of the earth and cuz roleplay realism