Roblox comments on ongoing missing child case and the statement is, uh, not great
The family of a 15-year-old boy who went missing in New York on January 9 have made a public appeal for information to help find the child. Police say Thomas Medlin left his school on that date, boarded a train to the Stony Brook Long Island railroad station, and then went to Grand Central Station, where he was seen on surveillance footage. He hasn't been seen since.
Eva Yan, Thomas's mother, told News12 in an interview that detectives believe the boy met someone while playing Roblox online, and subsequently planned to go and meet that person in the city. She added that such behaviour was completely out of character for Thomas.
Yan says family and friends are organising search parties across Long Island and the wider city nearly every day. Police add that Thomas’s last known locations were near Cherry and Rutgers streets in Lower Manhattan and later near Sands and Jay Street in Brooklyn, and ask anyone with potential information to contact them (details below).
A missing child is a situation with the potential for a tragic ending, and the case remains ongoing, which is why I was stunned to see the Roblox response. Roblox Corporation has now commented on the case via the official Roblox Newsroom channel, and this is a textbook example of how not to deal with such a sensitive topic.
"We are deeply concerned about a report involving a missing child, Thomas Medlin, in New York, and our thoughts are with him and his family," begins the Roblox statement. "When we learned that one of our users was missing, we followed our standard process and immediately began an investigation, searched for any previous law enforcement inquiries, and reached out to law enforcement to offer any support in their investigation."
So far, so boilerplate. But Roblox then goes on to essentially say its own review has found that Roblox is not culpable. Which, even if true, seems an extraordinarily tone-deaf bit of corporate ass-covering when the child in question is still missing. Roblox says its own review found, and this list is directly quoted:
- "No attempts to direct him to an off-platform communication method"
- "No sharing of off-platform contact information, including usernames, phone numbers or other communication methods"
- "All chat content was consistent with typical in-game discussions"
- "No indication that he used voice chat"
The company adds it will continue to assist law enforcement, and says "we are holding Thomas and his family in our hearts as we hope for his safe return." It then adds a link to the safety centre section of its website.
Even if every bit of what Roblox is saying is accurate, it comes across as an attempt to get out in front of another potentially incendiary story about the platform and child safety, rather than an expression of sympathy. In the context of the child still not having been found, an expression of sympathy and something along the lines of "we're fully cooperating with law enforcement to aid in any way we can" would've done the job.
At the time of writing, Thomas Medlin remains missing. The authorities have released pictures of the boy, and are asking anyone with information to contact the Suffolk County Police Department Fourth Squad at 631-854-8452 or call 911.