Current work sample
Policy judgment, made legible
The memo provides recommendations for enforcement in line with Roblox's Community Standards, identifies edge-case scenarios that challenge ambiguities in policy enforcement, and offers recommendations to address those ambiguities.
Overview
The structure below follows the memo's original sequence: purpose, scope, research question, source set reviews, and key definitions before moving into representative cases, observations, gaps, ambiguities, and recommendations.
Purpose
The purpose of this crosswalk memo is to demonstrate how Roblox's current policy frameworks and language apply to real-world scenarios. The memo provides recommendations for enforcement in line with Roblox's Community Standards, identifies and assesses edge-case scenarios that challenge ambiguities in policy enforcement, and provides recommendations to address those ambiguities.
Scope
The scope of this memo covers the use of coded extremist language and symbols in Roblox usernames, avatars, and groups. This entails examining usernames and display names for users, avatar clothing and features, and the names and descriptions of groups and experiences on the platform.
Research question
How does the use of coded language and symbols in usernames, avatars, and groups complicate the enforcement of Roblox's Community Standards?
Source set reviews
Due to being an external report, this memo does not use any internal Roblox data or procedures. The sources consulted for this memo include the Roblox Community Standards, Safety Tools and Policies, Roblox Marketplace Policy, Restricted Content Policy, Transparency reports, and reports from organisations such as the Global Network on Extremism and Technology and the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. CSRCPGNETGPAHE
Key definitions
The memo adheres to the definitions and policies outlined in Roblox's Community Standards and Restricted Content Policy. Those definitions shape the enforcement calls that follow.
Terrorism and Violent Extremist Content
CSContent or behavior that incites, condones, supports, glorifies, or promotes any terrorist or extremist organization or individual, their ideology, iconography, or actions.
- Recruiting membership or fundraising for a terrorist or extremist organization
- Encouraging others to leave Roblox to find information about a terrorist or extremist organization
Harassment and Discrimination
CSThreatening others with offline or online harm, inciting violence against people or property, discrimination, bullying, stalking, trolling, harassment, intimidation, extortion, and blackmail are not permitted on Roblox. We also do not allow any content that depicts, glorifies, encourages, promotes, or provides instructions for such behavior.
- Threatening to harm someone or their property offline
- Sexual harassment
- Revealing or threatening to reveal others' personal information
- Singling out a user or group for ridicule, abuse, humiliation, or degradation, either publicly or privately, including as part of a targeted mistreatment campaign
- Impersonating individuals, groups, or entities in ways that may damage their reputation or cause others to harm them, either online or in real life
- Shaming or stigmatising body types or physical features
- Threatening, insulting, abusing, mocking, or excluding individuals or groups on the basis of membership in a protected category, including age, race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, religion, disability status, veteran status, caste, and familial status
Strong Language
RCPRestricted experiences on Roblox may include vulgar or obscene language and allow it in user communications, including text and voice chat. However, we do not allow users to use strong language to discriminate, insult, harass, or intimidate others.
- Slurs or hate speech
- Strong language used in a sexual context
Violent Content and Gore
RCPRestricted experiences on Roblox may include graphic and realistic-looking depictions of violence and heavy bloodshed, but we do not allow content that contains extreme violence or serious physical or psychological abuse.
- Animal abuse and torture
- Real-world depictions of extreme gore, graphic violence, or death
- The depiction, support, or glorification of war crimes or human rights violations, including torture
- The depiction, support, or glorification of real-world mass shootings and or terrorism
Case log
This section draws from reports from third-party organizations and from my own small data set, identifying examples from time spent on the Roblox platform and assessing how those cases can be evaluated in line with the Community Standards.
Moderation decision log
Signals, policy hooks, and ambiguity
The table keeps the memo's original logic: signal, policy area, decision, and the ambiguity that complicates enforcement.
| Case | Signal / Content | Policy Hook | Decision | Ambiguity / Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EX-01 Avatar T-shirt | Avatar T-shirt featuring Spotify label 'This is Kanye West' with a photo of Anne Frank | Civility, Real-World Sensitive Events | Violation Mocks the victims of an act of mass violence and human rights violations. | Due to there being no overt references to the Holocaust itself, Nazism, or Judaism, the image is hard to classify under a specific policy without context. Read note |
| EX-02 Avatar features | Avatar features displaying Reichskriegsflagge | Civility and Safety | Further inspection Violation if additional context suggests glorification rather than historical documentation. | The Reichskriegsflagge is technically not illegal to display. This makes it difficult to moderate properly, even though it is regularly used by right-wing groups in Europe, specifically Germany. Read note |
| EX-03 Display name, avatar, and chat | User display name 'HonkWonk' for a character in the Elections Simulation experience | Safety | Closer inspection, then violation Report as a violation of Safety due to glorification of Nazism. | HonkWonk is a modification of a modification of a neo-Nazi dog whistle. On its own, it might not inherently be malicious. Read note |
| MG-01 Experience description | Hit Women(s) Simulation | Harassment and Discrimination | Violation It singles out a group, women, for abuse and ridicule. | There is hardly any coding done in the language, if any at all. The added s at the end of 'women' to make 'womens' could arguably be coding to evade detection, though this is minimal. Read note |
| MG-02 Experience titles and search results | Stacy Meeting Room(s) | Potential Harassment and Discrimination if paired with other incel signals | No violation on current evidence The examples are not necessarily cause for concern right off the bat. | Inherently, the name Stacy is not malicious. In the incel community, however, the name Stacy is used as a code to describe an idealized, conventionally attractive, and unattainable woman. Read note |
| MG-03 Experience titles and search results | Chad experiences, hangouts, simulators, and GigaChad references | Context-dependent harassment risk | Closer scrutiny Chad and especially GigaChad should be more heavily scrutinized in the context of other factors. | Chad and, by extension, GigaChad, have also been co-opted from incel space by more general Gen Z internet slang. Read note |
| MG-04 Display name and username pairing | 'Feminist' used as a term of ridicule | Harassment and Discrimination | Contextual review The situation grows more complicated when the display name is paired with usernames that suggest mockery, abuse, or discrimination on the basis of gender. | Some results are innocent, as the term itself is far from hostile or harmful. Read note |
| MG-05 Username and display name pairing | iMOGtheFemale and related combinations of manosphere-coded language | Harassment and Discrimination | Closer scrutiny The presence of multiple terms from manosphere vocabulary warrants closer scrutiny of the account and its behavior. | Nothing is directly threatening or abusive in the username on its face, which complicates the enforcement of anti-discrimination policies. Read note |
| MG-06 Username and display name search results | String character modifications such as f0id and fo1d | Harassment and Discrimination, ideological misogyny | Violation These names violate the Community Standards due to promoting abuse against women as a group on the basis of gender. | The messages remain unchanged, but the character modification makes incel activity more difficult to detect. Read note |
EX-01
ViolationAvatar T-shirt featuring Spotify label 'This is Kanye West' with a photo of Anne Frank
Understanding Kanye West's history of antisemitism and Holocaust denial, paired with the image of Anne Frank, gives the necessary context to classify this avatar feature as a Civility violation. GNET
Back to the tableEX-02
Further inspectionAvatar features displaying Reichskriegsflagge
Any avatars, experiences, or users that reference Reichskriegsflagge should be subject to additional examination to determine if the use of the flag is purely for historical purposes or if it has a symbolic purpose. GNET
Back to the tableEX-03
Closer inspection, then violationUser display name 'HonkWonk' for a character in the Elections Simulation experience
Putting it in the context of the avatar, which had the likeness of Adolf Hitler, combined with the user typing 'I am an Austrian painter' in German in the chat, gives a much clearer picture. GPAHE
Back to the tableMG-01
ViolationHit Women(s) Simulation
The experience name itself should have been enough to flag moderation systems as it is. In line with Roblox Community Standards, it violates the policy on Harassment and Discrimination on multiple counts, including mocking and threatening a group based on gender, gender identity, or gender expression. CS
Back to the tableMG-02
No violation on current evidenceStacy Meeting Room(s)
I would recommend paying closer attention to language using Stacy in the context of women who appear to be dressed in an objectifying manner or referred to in dehumanizing ways. If further incel dogwhistles and language are present, it should be treated as abuse and mockery of individuals on the basis of a protected identity, gender. UN Women
Back to the tableMG-03
Closer scrutinyChad experiences, hangouts, simulators, and GigaChad references
This also opens the door for more incel signaling and symbolic language to filter into the mainstream. If language such as Stacy, Becky, foid, soyboy, or white knight is also present, moderators should consider intervention on the grounds of harassment based on gender identity. UN WomenMoonshot
Back to the tableMG-04
Contextual review'Feminist' used as a term of ridicule
While Roblox's Community Standards demonstrate value for healthy, productive social and political discourse, the treatment of 'Feminist' as a label for a group and having usernames that suggest abuse or mockery of that group presents a slippery slope leading to violations of the Harassment and Discrimination provisions in the Community Standards. CSMoonshot
Back to the tableMG-05
Closer scrutinyiMOGtheFemale and related combinations of manosphere-coded language
The use of the word female is not inherently problematic, but it is common for incels and misogynistic groups to exclusively refer to women as females, femenoids, femoids, or foids as a means to remove humanity from women. The term mog is also widely used in the incel community and refers to dominating someone by being more physically attractive. Moonshot
Back to the tableMG-06
ViolationString character modifications such as f0id and fo1d
By replacing the o with a 0, or the i with a 1, in the term 'foid', I was able to generate pages full of corresponding users with display names and usernames exhibiting blatant incel dogwhistles and terminology, including 'foid destroyer', 'foid slayer', 'foid master', 'foid hater', and 'foid killer'. Pairing foid with slayer or destroyer serves to dehumanize women and promote violence against them. CSMoonshotRCP
Back to the tableObservations and gaps
The original observations section is where the memo broadens out from individual cases to the patterns that make moderation difficult at scale.
Gender-based violence and sexism as a coded pathway to extremism
Recent scholarship in the field of extremism and radicalization points to the role of misogyny as an early symptom and highly accurate indicator of extremist attitudes and behavior. During my perusal of the Roblox platform, just typing in the word 'women' in the search bar brought up numerous experiences and avatar options. Many of these were innocent, but many others were either blatantly misogynistic or should be looked at a second or third time before a moderation decision is made. M-I
Historical documentation versus glorification
In the case of the Reichskriegsflagge, the use of the flag is not inherently illegal. However, due to its widespread use by German right-wing groups, displaying the flag has become an indicator of espousing right-wing ideology. GNET
Context is necessary
Certain dog whistles from the incel community have filtered into more mainstream Gen Z internet slang. The term mog has grown beyond the borders of the manosphere and into spaces that have nothing to do with the incel community, and the term giga chad has grown more commonplace without inherently leading to overt incel activity or groups. This means additional context is even more necessary. MoonshotUN Women
Recommendations
The conclusion of the memo does not treat these as isolated moderation edge cases. It argues that Roblox already has useful enforcement mechanisms in place and should extend them more deliberately to coded misogyny and related dog whistles.
Address gender-based harassment before it escalates
This memo started out to catch coded language and assess how it can be addressed in line with Roblox policies and Community Standards. However, it also developed into a project addressing the pervasive nature of misogyny in all forms in the online space. Even casual remarks have an impact and can compound to promote more egregious behavior. If it does not already exist, a specific strategy for addressing gender-based harassment would be beneficial for catching the behavior at its least threatening, before it has a chance to evolve. CS
Apply existing character-modification logic to incel terms
I noticed that simple variations of terms like Holocaust generated no search results, implying that users are blocked from attempting names with these terms. Variations of the term k*ke also generate no results. Likewise, s1ut, a variation of slut, is also blocked on the platform. This same logic can and should apply to incel terms like foid. RCPCS
Use profanity-style enforcement mechanisms for extremist dogwhistles
What this shows is that Roblox's moderation policy already has mechanisms in place to address coded attempts at extremist language through character modification. The Community Standards provisions even include a ban against misspellings and character modifications for profane language. The same enforcement mechanisms for profanity can easily be used to examine modifications of incel language and other extremist dogwhistles. CSRCP
Bibliography
These citations reflect the source set used in the memo itself and are linked inline throughout the memo.
- CS Roblox. 'Roblox Community Standards.' Accessed 22 March 2026. Source
- RCP Roblox Support. 'Restricted Content Policy.' Accessed 22 March 2026. Source
- GPAHE Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. 'Roblox's Election Simulator Is Swarming with Fascists.' 15 March 2024. Source
- GNET Schlegel, Linda. 'Youth Radicalisation in the Gaming Sphere: An Exploration of Identity-Based Hate and Extremist Content on Roblox.' 2025. Source
- Moonshot Moonshot CVE. 'Incels: A Guide to Symbols and Terminology.' Accessed 22 March 2026. Source
- UN Women UN Women. 'Glossary: The Manosphere.' 1 December 2025. Source
- M-I Miller-Idriss, Cynthia. Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism.