The popular online multiplayer game Roblox has been hacked by Trump supporters who are targeting players' parents, pleading with them to vote for sitting President Donald Trump in the upcoming US presidential election. With the November's election day drawing nearer, Trump supporters are getting desperately creative with their attempts to re-elect Donald Trump.
Roblox, developed by Roblox Corporation and published in 2006, is a free-to-play online sandbox game that allows users to create games, like racing games, role-playing games, simulations and whatever else they can write in the game's programming language, Lua. Players can also play these user-created games, and buy various in game accessories with the game's virtual currency, Robux. In 2012 a mobile version was released for IOS, and a version for Android was released in 2014. It's most popular demographic is children of all ages, so it's rarely used as a political platform of any kind. Evidently, that might be changing.
Gamesindustry.biz has reported that Roblox accounts have been hacked by malicious Trump supporters in an effort to call upon underaged players' parents to vote for their candidate this year. Many users logged in to find their profile messages changed and their avatars dressed up as avid Trump supporters. While some users have still been able to log in and change their profiles back to their own preferences, according to Gamesindustry.biz more than 1300 profiles still show the message, "Ask your parents to vote for Trump this year," as well as the Trump campaign slogan, "MAGA2020." Roblox allows for many player customization options, but unlucky hacked users found their avatars dressed in bald eagle graphic t-shirts and red baseball caps resembling the red MAGA caps worn by ardent Trump supporters.
Roblox has over 115 million monthly active users, most of which fall between the ages of 9 and 18. Children are free to do whatever their imagination asks of the game, and there is a chat feature which is auto-moderated to filter out abusive comments or profanity. However, users older than 13 have access to a wider range of words or phrases, and, unfortunately, there are those few abominable older players that use the platform to their advantage and prey on young children in a sandbox game, much as these ignoble hacktivists have done.
There have been other instances of distasteful and even horrific hacks of the game. There are still online tutorials teaching people a hack that allows them to "rape" other avatars in the game. For a children's game, this sort of in-game misconduct should not be possible, as it has been abused to knowingly and intentionally confuse, indoctrinate, and (in extreme cases) groom child players. Kids just wanting to have some blocky fun are logging into Roblox to be disappointed by the fact that some people are using their accounts for perceived political gain to prop up an ailing campaign in an historic presidential election that they likely don't even comprehend, nor should they have to. It can be hoped that the developers will act swiftly and firmly in this and other cases of abusive behavior.
Source: Gamesindustry.biz