- This article is about suspensions given to user accounts. For being banned from an experience, see in-experience ban. For DevForum suspensions, see Developer Forum. For voice chat suspensions, see voice chat.
The Ban Hammer is often referenced in metaphors for being banned from Roblox, although it does not ban people.
An account suspension is a moderation action that prevents the user's account from accessing Roblox services, and is given when the user is found to be violating the Terms of Use. Suspensions can take the form of a warning which can be resolved by the user immediately, a ban in which the account is suspended for a period of time, or an account deletion (also known as a termination) in which the account is permanently banned. When an account is suspended, all pages on the Roblox website redirect to the "not approved" page where a description of the offense and moderation is shown. Users are encouraged to appeal their moderation using the Roblox support form, after which it may be lifted or modified if it is deemed incorrect.
Functionality
Accounts are moderated on Roblox if a human moderator (or artificial intelligence)[1] has deemed the user's actions or behavior to be in violation of Roblox's community guidelines. Roblox also moderates accounts based on international law. To comply with EU privacy laws, Roblox users can additionally request that their user data be deleted in its entirety, which involves deleting all their accounts.
Players who receive a moderation action while in-experience are kicked and receive an Error Code 273. Attempting to reconnect will change the error to Error Code 769 or 773.
Players are unable to view the profiles of terminated accounts. However, a bug on January 15th, 2014 gave users access to view terminated account profiles.[2][3][4] According to a forum reply by Merely 
Merely is a notable creator or influencer verified by Roblox Corporation. Learn more.,[5] administrator NobleDragon announced the bug was an update, but the announcement was probably deleted to prevent the spread of further misinformation about the change.
Parts of the moderation message
- This section discusses the details of the moderation message as it currently functions. Historical moderation message information is not documented in this section.
Durations
When an account is moderated, the duration determines when a user will be able to re-activate their account. Some forms of account moderation, such as warnings, can be immediately resolved by the user. In other cases, such as temporary bans, the account will remain suspended for the specified duration before its owner can resolve the moderation.
The following list is all currently supported durations, as retrieved from the Desktop App:[6]
- Warning (instant)
- Banned for 1 Day
- Banned for 3 Days
- Banned for 7 Days
- Banned for 14 Days
- Banned for 6 Months
- Banned for 1 Year
- Account Deleted (permanent)
- Moderation messages do not use alternate displays of these times; these are the exact way that these durations are displayed.
Reasons & moderator notes
When provided, the reason for the moderation will appear in the content section of the moderation screen. Depending on the violation that caused the moderation, moderator notes may be included. Moderator notes appear most often in English, but are sometimes in other languages such as Spanish, even if the player's account is not set to Spanish.
Content Blocked placeholder image
Before the August 2020 update to the not approved page, whenever an image or in-experience message was marked as Adult Content, it would be replaced with a placeholder image with a warning triangle saying "CONTENT BLOCKED" written under it.
The following list contains reasons currently included with account moderation, as retrieved from the Desktop App.[6] This does NOT include custom messages, which are rare. The current reasons and notes are not specifically tied to any moderation durations.[6]
| Reason | Moderator Note |
|---|---|
| Profanity | Roblox does not permit profane language or slurs. |
| Harassment | Roblox does not permit bullying or harassment towards community members. |
| Spam | Roblox does not permit spamming in the form of clickbait, or repetitive, large volume messaging. |
| Advertisement | |
| Scamming | Roblox does not permit phishing or scamming links, requests for passwords, selling of accounts, uploading of unauthorized accounts, selling Roblox assets for real money off platform, or artificially inflating numbers associated with experiences. |
| Adult Content | |
| Inappropriate | |
| Privacy | |
| Unclassified Mild | |
| BlockedContent | |
| Minor Swearing | |
| Distorted Audio | |
| Loud Earbleeders | |
| Players Screaming into Microphone | |
| Swearing | |
| Pornographic Sounds | |
| Explicit Sexual References and Innuendo | |
| Drug and Alcohol References | |
| Discriminatory or Nazi Content | |
| Dating Imagery | |
| Discriminatory Content | |
| Drugs, Alcohol | |
| DMCA | |
| Explicit Nudity/Porn | |
| Gang Images | |
| Nazis | |
| Personal Attack/Harassment/Bullying | |
| Red Armbands (Not Nazis) | |
| Suggestive/Sexualized Imagery | |
| Suicide/Self-Harm | |
| Clickbait Ads | |
| Inappropriate Content | |
| Not Related to Roblox | |
| Off-Site Links | |
| Hidden Message Clothing | |
| None of the Above | |
| Account Theft | |
| Asset Ownership | |
| Billing | |
| Compromised Account | |
| Copyright/DMCA | |
| Derogatory/Harrassment | |
| Depressive | |
| Discriminatory | Roblox does not permit discriminatory language, behavior, or content of any kind. |
| Exploiting | |
| Text Filter / Profanity | |
| Grooming | |
| Illicit Substance | |
| Malicious | |
| Misleading | |
| Dating | |
| Phishing/Scam | |
| Real Info | |
| RMT | |
| Sexual/Adult Content | |
| Shock | |
| Threats | |
| Real-Life Tragedy | Roblox does not permit content that recreates, mocks, or capitalizes off of specific real-world tragic events. |
| Politics | |
| Encouraging Dangerous Behavior | |
| Other | |
| Dating and Romantic Content | Roblox does not permit dating or romantic exchanges between avatars. |
| Sexual Content | Roblox does not permit sexual content in any form on the platform. |
| Directing Users Off-Platform | Roblox does not permit the use of off-site links of any kind. Links to Guilded, YouTube, Facebook, Discord, Twitter, and Twitch must be wrapped in the applicable Policy API or listed in the Social Networks and Social Links settings of your profile or experience description page. Links that appear in locations where the API cannot be deployed - such as text chat - are prohibited. |
| Privacy: Asking for PII | Roblox does not permit the exchange of Personal Identifiable Information (PII) between community members. |
| Privacy: Giving PII | Roblox does not permit sharing Personal Identifiable Information in the form of full name, email address, passwords, physical address, telephone numbers, images of themselves, or unauthorized voice recordings of minors. |
| Impersonation | Roblox does not permit users to mislead others by impersonating other people’s real- or virtual-world identity or affiliations. |
| Extortion and Blackmail | Roblox does not permit attempts to threaten users in order to force them to do something they do not want to do. |
| Illegal and Regulated Content | Roblox does not permit illegal or regulated content in any form. This can include alcohol, drugs, tobacco products, or bomb or weapon making. |
| Misusing Roblox Systems | Roblox does not permit bypasses of our systems that keep our platform and community safe and secure. |
| Political Content | Roblox does not permit support for current political candidates, parties, associated flags or symbols. |
| Terrorism/Extremism | Roblox does not permit associations with terrorism or violent extremism. |
| Child Endangerment | |
| Real-Life Threats | Roblox does not permit real threats of violence towards members of the Roblox Community. |
| Cheat and Exploits | Roblox does not permit users to deploy or discuss any method of cheating on platform. |
| Seeking Sexual Content | |
| Disruptive Audio | Roblox does not permit uploads of audio that is unintelligible, excessively loud, screaming, or high-pitched noises. |
| IRL Dangerous Activities | Roblox does not permit the encouragement of or participation in real-life dangerous activities among community members |
| Violent Content and Gore | Roblox does not permit violent content and gore, including excessive use of blood in images or videos. |
| Roblox Economy | Roblox does not permit using third-parties to buy, sell, or trade Robux, promotional codes that falsely appear to be from Roblox Corporation, or inappropriate use of the group payout system. |
| Roblox does not permit users to violate intellectual property rights. | |
| Contests and Sweepstakes | Roblox does not permit contests or sweepstakes in the form of lottery style games or playing for free Robux. |
| Advertising | Roblox does not allow this type of advertisement. Please ensure your ad content complies with the Roblox Advertising Standards. |
| Off Platform Speech and Behavior | Roblox may moderate reported users with off-platform behavior associated with organized crime, terrorist groups, hate groups, sharing others' Personal Identifiable Information, including making false reports about users. |
| Roblox does not permit real life threats or abuse of any Roblox Employees, Contractors, or Affiliates. | |
| Threats or Abuse of Roblox Employees or Affiliates | |
| IP Violation | |
| Roblox does not permit the use of third-party software to modify the client. | |
| Chargeback | |
| DMCA Early Legal Strike | |
| DMCA Final Legal Strike |
Appeals and membership
The new membership notice for terminated users used since August 2020.
Ban appeals were first implemented in 2012. The original appeal target was appeals@roblox.com, and in 2020 the target was changed to the Support form. In December 2023 however, was changed to Reporting & Appeals, and the final, January 2024, was changed to Violations & Appeals. If you want to send an appeal, you could email support-en@roblox.com, you will get an automated message saying that you need to use the support form.
Users are encouraged to appeal a moderation action they believe is invalid through the Roblox Support form. If the moderation action is deemed incorrect, it can be lifted or modified. Appeal responses may take a while, from twelve hours when there is no traffic up to seven days with an excess of traffic. Any individual moderation can be appealed, even warnings, such as to appeal a warning as invalid to have it removed from the user's moderation history.
Sometimes Roblox accepts appeals from terminated players after the allowed time to make an appeal. For example, in April 2024, Banana_snake23’s appeal was accepted. The user was terminated for 42 days.
Terminated players with an active Roblox Premium subscription receive an additional notification. This notification identifies when the player's Roblox membership will expire or renew and how to cancel their membership subscription if desired.
Moderation bugs and oversights
Audio refund incident
An account termination from the audio refund incident.
On July 4th, 2018, thousands of Roblox accounts were deleted due to a glitch with the audio refund system, which caused players to get double-refunds. This led to an automated moderator software flagging these players as suspicious and terminating their account, with the moderator note of Your account has been deleted for violating the Terms of Use for exploiting the audio refunds system.
Botting incident
On October 17th, 2018, thousands of Roblox accounts received an account deletion with the moderator note "Roblox ToS Violation". This ban wave primarily targeted bot users due to scams that were being perpetrated by them, although some innocent users which included known developers and traders were affected as well[7]. All terminations from the incident were given out at 4:51:49 PM.
2022 chat vulnerability incident
An oversight from as early as 2016 allowed experiences to send messages in the chat posing as another user. Between July 18th and 19th, 2022, many accounts were either banned for either three days or terminated (for the majority of players) due to malicious experiences spreading around that utilized this oversight to send very graphic content in chat posing as those that joined the experience, and then mass report that user to cause moderation to delete the account. Roblox reported after the incident that they had released a short-term fix for the issue and would be investigating a long-term fix.
2024 in-Experience creation of Packages incident
On January 8th, 2024, some Experiences were found to be baiting users into submitting Packages that would get them terminated. The feature was then disabled.[8]
Parent deletion requests
On multiple occasions, the Roblox support form and e-mail has been susceptible to social engineering via someone impersonating the parent of an account and requesting their account to be terminated. In January 2021, this exploit became more known after notable Roblox YouTubers TheQueenLisaGaming and Parlophones were targeted by this oversight.
Notable claims of false bans
On numerous occasions, many players have claimed to have been banned falsely, or for incorrect reasons. While this does occur on some occasions, the majority of these claims cannot be verified.
- Disclaimer: The following incidents are discussed due to notability, even though their validity cannot be verified.
In February 2020, ambusher11 posted about their Roblox account's termination on the Roblox subreddit; in the post (which was later removed by subreddit moderators due to a rule violation), ambusher11 claimed to have been targeted by a user who requested a support ticket, typed it out with caps lock and curse words, requesting their account to be terminated. The ticket was approved and as a result, ambusher11's account was deleted for being compromised. All of the appeals were denied, stating that he is not the owner of that account.[9][10] In the replies of ambusher11's Reddit post, many users were disappointed that Roblox had gullibly accepted the request. The account's termination has not been lifted as of the present day. There is no reliable verification for these claims being true. Shortly after, ambusher11 came back with a new account known as “PunishedAmbusher”.
On January 26th, 2021, a Roblox YouTuber named ImFaire announced on Twitter that his account was compromised.[11] His valuable limited items and account were lost in the process. Roblox Support later lifted ImFaire's account termination.[citation needed]
Functionality concerns
If an account is banned or terminated and has an active subscription to a private server, the subscription will continue after each renewal date as long as they still have sufficient Robux in the account to rent another month of the server, meaning that the banned account will lose Robux. Roblox has not given any statement as to when or if this will be patched.
History
According to Shedletsky (Telamon at the time), the first problematic user that Roblox staff encountered on the platform was found on October 17th, 2006.[12] It is unknown who this user was. Previously, Roblox only moderated accounts based on United States federal law. Roblox was then banned in the United Arab Emirates, presumably because they failed to comply with local laws. Roblox now moderates accounts based on international law.
Around 2010, there was a ban note which read "No longer welcome at ROBLOX."[citation needed]
Users used to be able to view a history of past moderations on their account in their account settings. This feature was later removed in 2016.
Message interface
Message content
Before 2009, the website used to display "Reported" instead of ''Reviewed'' and the reason displays in a box instead of "Reason: [Reason]". The moderator note does not include "Moderator Note:" in some bans in 2008. Earlier in 2008, It used to display "Source: Chat".
In 2013, Roblox's ban duration is all in capital letters.
Message design
In September 2020, the ban notice was redesigned to support dark mode. The Robux balance now displays as "?" for a banned user. Additionally, the message no longer displays "We will terminate your account if you do not abide by the rules."
Moderation in the European Union
In February 2024, Roblox implemented significant changes under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA). These rules are designed to keep users safe from inappropriate content on the platform.[13]
Bans are more in-depth in content moderation policies. EU-based developers and users receive notifications about moderation decisions, DSA rights, and the use of automated processes. The EU Commission also receives this information for transparency purposes.
Users can appeal Roblox moderation decisions for up to a six-month period.[14] They have the option to appeal Roblox moderation decisions to certified out-of-court dispute settlement systems.
Termination Under User's Request Feature
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A Permanent ban note on closed account.
In late 2022, Roblox allows users to have the right to terminate their account anytime by filing request forms in the Roblox support. Within a few days, users will receive an acknowledgment message that once the termination started, their account will be deleted and it cannot be reopened or recovered. At that time, users can still decide to cancel if they likely going to regret the decision in the future. If the users acknowledge the risk, Roblox will terminate their account and request users to verify their real identity with Veriff to process Data Privacy requests. Users can login into their closed account after its termination but will redirect into a Permanent Ban message with a moderation note: This account has been closed.
Former moderation types
- Forum purge: This would be given to some accounts in certain circumstances, where all of that account's forum posts would be replaced by [ Content Deleted ].
- Reminder: Similar to a warning, the user's account is disabled and can be reopened immediately by agreeing to the Terms of Service. Unlike a warning, this was given to new users or very mild violations. It appears to have been dropped due to its redundancy and all reminder offenses were merged with the warning offenses.
Gallery
New Interface with new font update:
Roblox ban with new font
Roblox has made changes to the font. An image of a ban with a new font design has been shown on the right (desktop) or below (mobile).
New interface
Old interface
Other
.png "Moderation history (2013).png (107 KB)")
References
- ↑ Kaufman, Matt (2024, April 4). "Scaling Safety and Civility on Roblox". From Roblox Blog. Accessed May 31, 2024. Archived from the original on April 4, 2024.
- ↑ https://archive.froast.io/forum/123228790#123228837
- ↑ https://archive.froast.io/forum/123197690
- ↑ Merely [@MerelyRBLX] (2014, January 15). "Roblox made an update so you can view the profiles of banned users. Check this out:" [Tweet]. Twitter.
- ↑ https://archive.froast.io/forum/123217892#123227148
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Strings retrieved from the Desktop App: https://github.com/Julli4n/Roblox-Translations-Tracker/blob/master/en_us/LuaApp.json
- ↑ https://twitter.com/Neutron_Jimmy7/status/1052683554981863424
- ↑ Rodriguez, Carlos (2024, January 8). "In-Experience Creation of Packages [Disabled]". From DevForum. Accessed January 9, 2024. Archived from the original on January 9, 2024.
- ↑ https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ER8b4YAXYAEkAKt?format=jpg&name=orig
- ↑ https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ER8b49rX0AA6Ug-?format=png&name=orig
- ↑ Faire [@FaireGaming] (2021, January 27). "This is legit the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Because I’m unable to email them on the verified email (the hackers email) @Roblox is unable to recover my account and get my 3,000,000 value worth of limiteds back. Someone please help... #roblox" [Tweet]. Twitter.
- ↑ https://www.gamedev.net/forums/topic/419919-best-way-to-ban-users/
- ↑ Roblox (2024, February 13). "Changes We’re Making as The Digital Services Act (DSA) Takes Effect". From DevForum. Archived from the original on March 1, 2024.
- ↑ RTC [@Roblox_RTC] (2024, February 17). "EU users will have up to 6 months to appeal moderation decisions. Additionally, they have the right to escalate Roblox moderation decisions to certified out-of-court dispute settlement systems." [Tweet]. Twitter.
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