Young people are protesting ICE and reenacting immigration raids in online gaming platform Roblox

The gaming platform Roblox is displayed on a tablet, Oct. 30, 2021, in New York. (AP Photo/Leon Keith)

Roblox, the online gaming platform wildly popular with children and teenagers, is the “ultimate virtual universe” where users can “be anything you can imagine,” according to the platform’s website. Recently, some young users have been imagining themselves as Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

Some users have donned ICE gear and carried out “raids” on a popular roleplaying game within Roblox. Other young people on the platform have taken to the virtual streets with signs in their avatar’s hands in protest, expressing sentiments like “We hate ICE” (all signs are free of expletives, of course, which are banned on Roblox).

A TikTok account sharing videos of such raid reenactments and protests has racked up millions of views in recent weeks. Much of the gameplay involving raids appears to be taking place on a private server within the Brookhaven roleplaying game, which is one of Roblox’s most popular and widely played games.

Protests against ICE and immigration raid reenactments within the vast world of Roblox are not new. Video clips of such behavior on the gaming platform cropped up on social media last summer when “No Kings” protests were being held across the country, largely in response to increased immigration enforcement. But the resurgence of such content on social media and within the game suggests young people are responding to the government’s immigration operation in Minnesota and the strong resistance they’ve been met with by protesters.

This behavior, particularly the digital protests, could be a healthy way for children and teens to cope with news they’re seeing about immigration enforcement, according to Giovanni Ramos, an assistant professor of clinical science at the University of California, Berkeley. But roleplaying the raids could be more worrisome — and they go against Roblox’s own rules.

A Roblox spokesperson said Friday that the reenactments of immigration raids are in violation of the platform’s community standards and said the company takes “swift action against users found to be violating” those policies. The user guidelines state that Roblox prohibits content that “recreates specific real-world sensitive events, mocks the victims of such events, supports, glorifies, or promotes the perpetrators or outcome of such events or capitalizes on these events for commercial purposes.”

Roblox uses a multi-layered approach in enforcing community standards, with a combination of human moderators, user reports and advanced AI models. The company encouraged users in its statement to report any behavior or content that goes against our community standards so it can “investigate and take immediate action.”

“No system is perfect, but we work to strengthen our user protections every day,” the spokesperson said.

Ramos said these virtual raid reenactments could “minimize the emotional impact that immigrant youth are experiencing by being exposed to this chronic stressor,” and they may be invalidating the emotions of kids who are especially impacted if the raids are seen as fodder for jokes.

Still, he thinks in many cases, those taking on the role of immigration officers on the platform and carrying out raids could just be doing so out of curiosity. “It could be youth exploring what they’re seeing in the news or what they hear adults talking about at home and trying to make sense of those experiences,” Ramos said.

The protests and demonstrations on Roblox could also be a way children are seeking out social support, Ramos added. They are “creating community and connecting with people who actually are going through similar things, who might understand their emotional experiences,” he said.

That kind of connection is valuable and shouldn’t be dismissed, Ramos said. “That can really be a lifeline.”

Kaitlyn Huamani, The Associated Press