Legislation introduced by state Assemblyman Keith Brown (R-Northport) would require anyone under 21 caught smoking the sticky icky to attend a cannabis diversion program — and force parents to also attend the sessions.
“This is an opportunity to address and put some teeth into the [Marijuana Regulation & Taxation Act],” Brown told The Post, referring to the law that legalized adult marijuana use in the Empire State.
Under the current state law, those who are caught possessing or using ganja under the legal age of 21 are penalized with a paltry $50 fine — less than the cost of a premium bag of weed.
“The current penalty of 50 bucks and a pamphlet is hardly enough prevention,” he added. “If we say we’re going to treat marijuana like alcohol, then we need to treat marijuana like alcohol.”
Since Albany legalized the use and sale of marijuana, legislators have opened up a Pandora’s box when it comes to cannabis use.
“There are whole corridors and whole stairwells that just reek of pot,” said Forest Hills High School teacher Adam Bergstein, who added there are kids who toke up before class starts “and then keep smoking marijuana in the school.”
In the Big Apple, the presence of pot has exploded in recent years, including throughout the city’s schools.John Curtis Rice
As of early January, students caught with possession of drug paraphernalia and “controlled substances” on school grounds jumped 8% for the school year, compared to the same period pre-legalization in 2019, according to city Department of Education data obtained by Chalkbeat.
Bergstein, 52, griped that the unchecked use is due to the limited repercussions doled out to students caught with weed, and thinks forcing parents to take greater responsibility for their children’s drug habit could address the issue.
“You just basically have a situation that’s hard to control, so if the parents had to actually participate and be involved, I think you would see a drop in drug use in the schools,” he said.
Asm. Keith Brown (R-Northport) said the state’s current penalties aren’t enough to discourage underage marijuana use.NYS Assembly
Addiction treatment consultant Ben Cort noted that diversion programs can be a salve for children, but warned that parents today can be as resistant as their kids to seeing the health concerns tied to underage marijuana use.
“If you get parents and kids together in a room and give them something to make fun of, it doesn’t accomplish anything,” he said.
Critics of the state’s relaxed approach toward its cannabis conundrum, however, were heartened by lawmakers’ focus on protecting New York’s youth from the potential dangers of cannabis.
“If the state continues to normalize drug usage, addressing its impact on our youth is essential,” said City Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens). “Any law that involves parents and offers programs to educate and guide kids away from drugs is something I’m all for.”
The Biden administration has blocked off millions of acres of federal waters from a planned oil and gas lease sale after settling with environmental groups over habitat protections for a rare species of whale.
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) said in an Aug. 23 notice that, as part of Lease Sale 261, it will offer around 67 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas drilling.
That is around 9 percent, or 6.4 million acres, less than BOEM's original proposal, following a settlement with environmental groups that pauses ongoing litigation over environmental protections in the Gulf of Mexico in exchange for excluding Rice's whale habitat from any lease sales.
Environmental groups praised the exclusions, while representatives of the oil and gas industry called the carveouts "unfounded" and said the restrictions would needlessly hamper domestic energy production.
Some lawmakers also objected to the exclusions, including Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
“This Administration continues to kowtow to radical environmentalists at the expense of American energy security and costs to American families," Mr. Manchin said in a statement obtained by The Epoch Times.
Rice's whale is one of the most endangered marine mammal species on the planet, with an estimated population of just 51 individuals, around 100 scientists told the Biden administration in an open letter (pdf) last year.
Arguing that the loss of even a single whale threatens the survival of the entire species, the scientists urged the Biden administration to disallow oil and gas drilling in and around the whale's habitat.
Settlement With Environmental Groups
In order to proceed with the gas lease sale as required by provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the Biden administration agreed to settle with environmental groups that sued the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) over what they said was a flawed biological opinion that failed to sufficiently protect endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico.
In 2020, environmental law organization Earthjustice filed a lawsuit (pdf) against NMFS on behalf of the Sierra Club, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, and Turtle Island Restoration.
The lawsuit challenged a Trump-era biological opinion on oil and gas activities in the Gulf of Mexico, with the groups saying that the legally binding opinion failed to require sufficient safeguards for endangered species, including Rice's whale (identified in the complaint as Bryde's whale, an alternate name for the species).
Under a settlement agreement (pdf) that was approved on Aug. 24 in the U.S. District Court in Maryland, the groups agreed to pause their litigation. In exchange, BOEM said it will exclude Rice's whale habitat from any lease sales that occur during a 13-month period that the case is on hold while federal agencies reevaluate the 2020 biological opinion.
More Details
As the lawsuit made its way through the courts, BOEM said it decided to reinitiate consultation with the NMFS regarding an oil-spill risk analysis and ways to incorporate certain previously developed mitigation measures to protect Rice's whale habitat.
On Aug. 23, BOEM said in a document that provides key information about the sale to potential bidders (pdf) that, as talks continue with the NMFS and as the agency awaits a new or amended biological opinion, it decided to add "certain interim measures to the 'Protected Species' Stipulation to provide additional protections for Rice's whale while the reinitiated consultation is ongoing."
The temporary measures include designating temporary whale-safe zones between 100 and 400 meters in depth across the northern Gulf of Mexico, eastward from the Mexican border with Texas, and westward from Rice's whale core area (as identified in the biological opinion that is the subject of ongoing litigation).
These interim protective measures for Rice's whales are basically what accounts for the 6 million or so fewer acres made available as part of BOEM's lease sale.
At the same time, efforts are underway to permanently designate waters between 100 and 400 deep in the Gulf of Mexico as "critical habitat" zones that are "essential to the conservation of the Rice's whale," according to a July proposal by NOAA Fisheries. The proposal is open to public comment until Sept. 22, 2023.
In addition to the whale habitat zone exclusions, the settlement also includes a requirement for any oil and gas vessel to reduce its speed to 10 knots when traveling through the habitat area.
Reactions
BOEM's announcement of the 6 million acre carveout for the oil and gas lease was lauded by environmental groups but met with disdain by the fossil fuel industry.
“The simple protective measures in this agreement recognize the first rule of holes: when you find yourself in one, stop digging,” Steve Mashuda, Earthjustice managing attorney for Oceans, said in a statement. “If we’re going to save Rice’s whales, we need to first stop dropping more oil rigs and more ships in their habitat and making the problem worse.”
The American Petroleum Industry (API), a fossil fuel industry lobby, took a dim view of the settlement-related exclusions to the lease sale.
“While the Department of the Interior announced a much-needed offshore lease sale today, the Biden administration continues to throw up roadblock after roadblock to American energy production, prioritizing their campaign promise to stop American oil and natural gas development in federal waters over their duty to meet Americans’ energy needs," Holly Hopkins, API vice president of Upstream Policy, said in a statement.
"This action defies Congress’s mandate in the Inflation Reduction Act, jeopardizes U.S. energy security and violates the Biden administration’s energy obligations to the American people,” Ms. Hopkins added.
The Inflation Reduction Act includes provisions that reinstate previously halted oil and gas lease sales.
Mr. Manchin, who fought for the oil and gas lease provisions in the legislation, denounced the Biden administration's lease exclusions.
"Let me be clear, the exclusion of more than 6 million productive acres from the upcoming offshore oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico based on a settlement reached in the name of protecting Rice’s whale while conveniently only targeting oil and gas is yet another example of this Administration's intentional undermining of the strong energy security provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act," Mr. Manchin said.
"The IRA required lease sales to get oil and gas leasing back on track to reduce the cost for working families to cook, heat their homes and fill their gasoline tank,” Mr. Manchin added.
Parents are not able to opt their children out of lessons featuring LGBT content, a federal judge has ruled.
Parents sued Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland over the lessons after officials revoked their opt-out policy over the large number of opt-out requests. Parents said the failure to provide opt-outs forced them to give up their religious beliefs or seek alternative schooling.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman, though, said the parents had not shown the policy would “result in the indoctrination of their children or otherwise coerce their children to violate or change their religious beliefs.”
“With or without an opt-out right, the parents remain free to pursue their sacred obligations to instruct their children in their faiths,” Judge Boardman, an appointee of President Joe Biden, said in a 60-page ruling denying a request for a preliminary injunction. “Even if their children’s exposure to religiously offensive ideas makes the parents’ efforts less likely to succeed, that does not amount to a government-imposed burden on their religious exercise.”
Montgomery County Public Schools is one of the largest school systems in the country, with some 160,000 students.
Montgomery County officials said in a statement that the school district "remains committed to cultivating an inclusive and welcoming learning environment and creating opportunities where all students see themselves and their families in curriculum materials.12 hours ago."
"We also will continue to adhere to our responsibility to include instructional materials that reflect the diversity of the local and global community by exploring the aspirations, issues, and achievements of women and men, people with disabilities, people from diverse racial, ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds, as well as those of diverse gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation," officials said.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs, who adhere to Islam or Christianity, said the ruling was wrong.
“The court’s decision is an assault on children’s right to be guided by their parents on complex and sensitive issues regarding human sexuality,” Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, and one of the lawyers, said in a statement. “The School Board should let kids be kids and let parents decide how and when to best educate their own children consistent with their religious beliefs.”
Plaintiffs plan to appeal Judge Boardman's ruling and expect oral arguments to take place at the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in the fall.
Judge Boardman said that the appeals court has not yet addressed whether mandatory lessons in public schools might burden the religious exercise of students or parents, but that rulings from other courts support the idea that "the mere exposure in public school to ideas that contradict religious beliefs does not burden the religious exercise of students or parents."
That includes Mozart v. Hawkins County Board of Education, a 1987 decision in which an appeals court found that students were compelled to violate their religious convictions but that they were not required to affirm their belief or disbelief in any of the ideas, like evolution, promoted in the curriculum.
More on Case
Montgomery County officials introduced 13 new books featuring LGBT characters at the start of the 2022–23 school year. They said the books were introduced because a review of its curriculum found it lacked representation of LGBT people.
The books have been used in lessons for children as young as 3, prompting concerns from parents, teachers, and principals.
"It is problematic to portray elementary school age children falling in love with other children, regardless of sexual preferences," a group of principals said in a memorandum to the district that was revealed in the litigation.
"Family life isn’t taught until fifth grade, but a second grade book uses terminology such as cisgender or transgender," the memo also stated.
Teachers were also instructed to tell students that "when we're born, people make a guess about our gender" and that sometimes, the guess is "wrong," according to other documents made public in the case.
Judge Boardman acknowledged that the guidance document for teachers contained answers that "could be interpreted to promote a particular view as correct," but added, "they are not required answers, and they are outliers among the suggested answers that do not promote a particular view."
Parents were able to have their children excluded from lessons featuring the books initially, but officials informed them on March 23 that further requests would not be entertained "for any reason."
The change stemmed from the large number of parents who requested opt-outs, Niki Hazel, a district official who oversees curriculum, said in a court filing.
"Individual principals and teachers could not accommodate the growing number of opt out requests without causing significant disruptions to the classroom environment and undermining MCPS’s educational mission," Ms. Hazel said.
Other officials have said that children who are LGBT or have LGBT family members were hurt when other students left the classroom when the controversial materials were read.
Plaintiffs argued that revoking opt-outs violated state law and the U.S. Constitution and that hurt feelings were not an adequate reason to change the policy.
American cattlemen are readying for a fight to protect the definition of the word meat from producers of synthetic cellular-based beef alternatives.
“It’s a red line. It isn’t right that these factory-made products should be able to market and sell their products off the backs of the cattleman,” Justin Tupper, President of the United States Cattlemen’s Association, told The Epoch Times.
The synthetic “meat” market has already arrived in America.
Last year, the USDA gave two producers the green light to start producing and selling their lab-grown chicken-like products in the United States.
While a decision over the labeling of the product has yet to be announced, the cattle industry plans on being aggressively proactive in both discussions with the USDA and, if needed, litigation after having learned a valuable lesson from the dairy farmers.
“The milk industry really dropped the ball,” said Mr. Tupper. “They never believed that anyone would think that almond milk was actual milk, so they brushed it off at the time. Now there are hundreds of items with milk in the name but with no milk in the product, and it has really hurt the entire dairy industry.”
“In the same way that you can’t milk an almond, you can’t get meat from a lab, only an animal, and we are not going to allow them to use our name to promote their product.”
Synthetic meat-like products are created by taking cells acquired from animals and placing them in a warm, sterile area, usually, a metal vat, where they are then combined with a solution of chemicals that causes the cells to double once a day.
A piece of Good Meat's cultivated chicken is displayed at the Eat Just office in Alameda, Calif., on July 27, 2023. Back in June, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) authorized two California-based companies, Upside Foods and Good Meat, to sell chicken grown from cells in a lab. Cell-cultivated or lab-grown meat is made by feeding nutrients to animal cells in stainless steel tanks. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
The demand for synthetic meat has been spurred largely by corporate entities and government agencies working in tandem with the environmental movement.
Bill Gates, an investor in Upside Foods, one of the two synthetic meat producers approved by the USDA, believes meat alternatives are needed to save the world from upcoming catastrophic climate events caused by greenhouse gasses.
In a 2021 interview with Technology Review, Mr. Gates said that all well-off nations need to switch to be completely weaned off of living, breathing cows.
"All rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef. You can get used to the taste difference, and the claim is they’re going to make it taste even better over time,” Mr. Gates told the interviewer. “Eventually that green premium is modest enough that you can sort of change the people or use regulation to totally shift demand. So for meat in the middle-income-and-above countries, I do think it's possible.”
A switch from animal meat to a laboratory-grown substitute would eliminate the need for animals to be bred and slaughtered—in the U.S. alone, around 9 billion chickens and 32 million cattle are killed every year.
However, beef cattle production constitutes only a small fraction of the gasses that many environmentalists claim have had a negative impact on the planet.
Just 2 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions in the United States come from beef cattle production, while energy production and transportation produce a combined 54 percent of emissions, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Ranchers survey their herd of cattle in Quemado, Texas, on June 13, 2023. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
Italian Ban
American ranchers aren’t the only ones raising the alarm. After two million Italians signed a petition calling for a ban against synthetic meat products, the Italian Senate passed a bill earlier this week, becoming the first country to make it illegal to produce or market the food, highlighting health concerns as the primary reason.
Ettore Prandini, President of Coldiretti, the largest association representing Italian agriculture, touted the vote as a legislative victory for the Italian people over corporate powers, telling the media that “the products in the laboratory in the authorization processes are not equated to food but rather to products of a pharmaceutical nature.”
An April 2023 report by the United Nations on the safety of “cell-based food products” cited 53 potential health hazards, including “the potential for expression of novel toxins, toxic metabolites, or allergens or a change in expression of toxins, toxic metabolites, or allergens as a result of genomic instability.”
The report concluded with a call for additional research and funding in order to draw more definitive conclusions.
Transparency Needed
Mr. Tupper isn’t calling for a ban on synthetic foods, only transparency, and believes that despite the large push for meat alternatives coming from corporate leaders and government agencies, the American cow is here to stay.
“The simple truth is that the taste of real beef cannot be replicated and, more importantly, when people discover the chemical storm that is actually in this product they are trying to pass off as meat, consumers are going to come to the conclusion that beef should come from a cow, not from a laboratory.”
“Our hopes are that the USDA will label this product for what it is, a cellular-based derivative of chemicals,” added Mr. Tupper.
Americans are raising their voices against mask mandates reintroduced by some institutions amid reports of rising COVID-19 cases—with some people calling recent infections an “election variant.”
On Aug. 20, Morris Brown College announced in an Instagram post that the institution has reinstated its COVID-19 mask mandate “effective immediately” due to reports of infections among students in the Atlanta University Center. All students and employees are mandated to wear face masks for a 14-day period, with students required to observe physical distancing.
Hollywood studio Lionsgate has sent a memo asking employees to wear masks after some of its workers were infected with COVID-19.
“Employees must wear a medical grade face covering (surgical mask, KN95 or N95) when indoors except when alone in an office with the door closed, actively eating, actively drinking at their desk or workstation, or if they are the only individual present in a large open workspace,” Sommer McElroy, of Lionsgate, wrote in the memo.
Primary care provider Kaiser Permanente is now requiring staff, patients, and visitors at its Santa Rosa facilities to wear face masks.
Last week, Upstate Medical’s two hospitals in New York reimposed mandatory masking following reports of an uptick in COVID-19 infections.
Many people have begun pushing back against mandates and questioned the timing of the rise in COVID infections—with 2024 elections nearing.
“And just like that, the election variant emerges,” author George Papadopoulos said in an Aug. 23 post on X.
“I see the election time variant of COVID is about to drop. Mail in ballots to EVERYONE! Lol. America no longer has free and fair elections. We are no different than 3rd world countries in this regard,” conservative political commentator Candace Owens said in an Aug. 23 X post.
“I hear that the Covid-19 Election Variant may be coming back. I Will Not Comply,” Republican Kari Lake said in an Aug. 23 post on X.
The use of “election variant” comes in the context of the 2020 election—during the COVID pandemic—when many states expanded voting procedures, including mail-in ballots, to accommodate lockdown restrictions.
“In the 2020 election, 69 percent of voters nationwide cast their ballot non-traditionally—by mail and/or before Election Day,” according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
A Pew Research survey from November 2020 showed that Democrats benefited greatly from mail-in ballots. While 32 percent of Trump supporters voted through absentee or mail-in ballots, this was much higher in the case of Joe Biden, as 58 percent of his supporters used mail-in ballots.
Meanwhile, some Hollywood celebs have started promoting mask-wearing.
“COVID is on the rise. SO MANY friends now are really sick. BE MINDFUL. WEAR A MASK if required or even if you feel unwell and are out in public spaces,” Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis said in an Aug. 22 Instagram post showing an image of the actress with a mask.
Clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan B. Peterson responded to Curtis’ mask promotion by stating, “Enough medical fascism.”
“Stay at home if you're scared. But leave the rest of us the hell alone,” he said in an Aug. 23 post on X.
Rising Infection Numbers
According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there has been an uptick in COVID-19 hospitalization in recent weeks. As of the week ending Aug. 12, there were 12,613 admissions, which is double the 6,313 admissions for the week ending June 24.
However, the current increase in hospitalizations is far lower compared to the previous two years, suggesting that COVID-19 infections popping out this time may not be as severe as in the past.
A COVID-19 vaccination hub at Central Falls High School in Central Falls, Rhode Island, on Feb. 13, 2021. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images)
In 2022, the week ending Aug. 13 had registered 41,113 hospitalizations, which is more than three times what it was on Aug. 12, 2023. For the week ending Aug. 14, 2021, hospitalization numbers were at 77,625.
The COVID-NET laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 hospitalization overall rate per 100,000 people was at 1.7 for the week ending Aug. 12, far lower than 9.2 in the same period last year.
The current concerns regarding COVID-19 have been triggered due to a newly discovered variant called BA.2.86. The World Health Organization (WHO) said that the new strain is a “variant under monitoring.”
In an Aug. 23 update, the CDC said that at least two cases of BA.2.86 infections have been identified in the United States. Existing medications for COVID-19 “appear to be effective with this variant,” it said. CDC believes that an updated vaccine “will be effective at reducing severe disease and hospitalization.”
“At this point, there is no evidence that this variant is causing more severe illness,” the agency stated.
Government COVID-19 Testing Orders
Multiple departments under the federal government have placed orders for COVID-19 equipment, according to media executive Steve Bannon’s podcast website.
The Department of Defense (DoD) has given a $1.5 million order to Hologic Sales and Service for COVID-19 testing services, the website said, citing data from USA Spending. The contract is set to begin in October and end in May 2024.
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has placed a $2 million contract with Abbott Molecular Inc. for COVID-19 testing, with the contract set to begin on Sept. 22. It has also signed a $1.3 million contract with Biofire Diagnostic for testing.
Back in April, the Biden administration announced that it was spending $5 billion to develop more COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. However, the announcement did not mention masking or social distancing.
Masking has been a highly politicized issue ever since the pandemic began years ago, with some questioning whether the government had the authority to institute mask mandates.
In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the White House does not have the authority to enforce vaccine or masking mandates on companies with 100 or more employees.
Last year, the court ruled that the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has the power to impose mask mandates on planes, trains, and other transportation options.
In an Aug. 22 post on X, physician David McCune criticized incidents of mandatory masking at institutions. “If they will go back to the utterly failed practice of forced masking at the mere hint of new cases, it means, among other things, they have utter disregard for the human right to contact with other humans.”
“Faces [matter]. And the freedom to show yours shall not be abridged,” Mr. McCune said. He was responding to Morris Brown College’s masking requirement for students and employees.
Though mask-wearing is pushed as a way to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, many experts have countered such suggestions.
In an interview with The Epoch Times, Yoav Yehezkelli, a specialist in internal medicine and medical management, pointed out that “all the studies done in the world until 2020 showed that there is no justification” for wearing masks to prevent the spread and infection of a respiratory virus.
In 2020, after the pandemic, recommendations for wearing masks suddenly changed “without having any new professional support to confirm that it does indeed have effectiveness against respiratory infection.”
A review of mask use studies published in January this year found that the use of face masks is not effective in reducing the spread of respiratory viruses.
Roblox,the online video game maker of popular hitssuch as “Murder Mystery 2,” “Adopt Me,” and “Slap Battles” is being sued by the parents of two minors who allege that the company is illegally facilitating child gambling.
Rachelle Colvin, a California resident, and Danielle Sass, who lives in New York state, filed suit against the San Mateo, Calif.-based company last week in San Francisco federal court.
The plaintiffs accuse Roblox of “allow[ing] third-party gambling websites, including the highly popular online casinos operated by defendants Satozuki, Studs, and RBLXWild…to use the Roblox website to accept online bets using Robux, to be placed on games at [their] virtual casinos,” according to court papers.
The lawsuit alleged that Roblox was in violation of its own terms of service, which states that “experiences that include simulated gambling, including playing with virtual chips, simulated betting, or exchanging real money, Robux, or in-experience items of value are not allowed.”
According to the lawsuit, Roblox users, most of whom are minors, “first purchase Robux through the Roblox website, using either their own money, a parent’s credit card, or gift cards they possess.”
The minor then “navigates to one of the” three aforementioned sites’ “virtual casinos” that “exist outside the Roblox ecosystem,” according to court papers.
“Then, the user links their Robux wallet on Roblox’s website to the gambling website,” the court documents alleged.
“And finally, once the minor-user’s wallet is linked, the gambling website converts the minor user’s Robux into credit that can only be wagered in their virtual casinos,” according to the lawsuit.
“The gambling credits function just like chips in a brick and mortar casino,” the defendants alleged in court papers.
“Users ‘buy in’ using their Robux, obtain chips, gamble until they lose their money or wish to cash out, and, if they increase their credits, they cash those credits out in exchange for Robux,” the lawsuit alleged.
Roblox, which operates a metaverse — an emerging virtual space where people play games and make transactions — reported 65.5 million daily active users in the most recent quarter.NurPhoto via Getty Images
“This entire exchange of Robux occurs on the Roblox platform with Roblox’s knowledge and active support, and Robux never leave the Roblox ecosystem unless and until they are cashed out for fiat currency,” according to court documents.
A Roblox spokesperson told The Post: “We can’t address the specific allegations of the lawsuit, given the pending litigation.”
Bu the spokesperson added: “Bad actors make illegal use of Roblox’s intellectual property and branding to operate such sites in violation of our standards.”
“Roblox has teams and processes in place to investigate these types of websites to protect our brand and platform, including, where possible, having the websites removed,” the spokesperson said.
“In some cases, we engage with law enforcement as part of our efforts.”
“Bad actors make illegal use of Roblox’s intellectual property and branding to operate such sites in violation of our standards,” a Roblox spokesperson told The Post.SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
The company rep added: “Ensuring a safe and compliant online experience for users of Roblox is a core tenant of the company.”
“Roblox will continue to be vigilant in combating entities who engage in practices that are in violation of our policies or endanger the safety of our community.”
Reps for Satozuki, Studs, and RBLXWild were not immediately available for comment.
Roblox, which operates a metaverse — an emerging virtual space where people play games and make transactions — reported 65.5 million daily active users in the most recent quarter, with a long-term goal of reaching 1 billion daily users.
