Kids are turning Roblox into a virtual protest ground against ICE

As anti-ICE protests intensify across the country, kids are turning Roblox into a protest ground online.

Last week, thousands took to the streets to protest the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Meanwhile, on Roblox, avatars faced off with players dressed in police SWAT gear in the popular Brookhaven roleplay world (based on the real city of Brookhaven, Georgia), as Taylor Lorenz first reported in User Mag.

After her story published, Lorenz shared an update that Roblox protesters are now facing police violence. A screenshot of a text shared with Lorenz (which she then posted on X) reads: “I was in a Roblox ice protest but then we all got shot. By the police.”

Players have been sharing updates across TikTok and Discord, posting dates and times for upcoming protests. Some Roblox players are even enacting their own ICE raids. One TikTok video shows a player dressed as an ICE agent, barging into another player’s Roblox home and violently “arresting” him.

Roblox hosts around 85 million daily active users globally, about 40% of whom are under the age of 12. Brookhaven is Roblox’s most-visited experience ever, with over 65 billion visits, and recently won two Roblox Innovation Awards 2024 categories: “Best Roleplay/Life Sim” and “Best Social Hangout.”

A study published earlier this year in Cornell University’s preprint server arXiv found that in-game roleplay and avatar customization help kids aged eight to 13 explore their identities. As the iPad generation grows up, gaming platforms like Roblox are becoming spaces where they process major world events.

Virtual protests aren’t new. In 2016, young users took to Club Penguin to protest President Donald Trump’s victory in an election they were too young to vote in, declaring “not my president” and “penguins of color matter” in the speech bubbles above their penguin avatars. In 2020, gamers staged virtual sit-ins in Habbo and held demonstrations in Toontown during the Black Lives Matter protests amid lockdown restrictions.

These protests may be virtual, but that doesn’t make them any less real. Gen Alpha has grown up online, and with many still too young to vote or take their activism to the streets, it makes sense they’re showing up in droves in the spaces they inhabit every day.

As one TikTok user shared, her younger sister couldn’t attend the anti-ICE protests in person because of safety concerns. Instead, her sister told her: “It’s ok I protested on Roblox yesterday.”

https://www.fastcompany.com/91354781/kids-are-turning-roblox-into-a-virtual-protest-ground-against-ice?partner=rss&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=rss+fastcompany&utm_content=rss