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Ruben Sim
American YouTuber (born 1997)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Benjamin Robert Simon (born May 12, 1997), known online as Ruben Sim, is an American YouTuber best known for his commentary and criticism of the online game platform Roblox. Simon began producing content about Roblox throughout the 2010s, building a large audience through satirical videos and investigative commentary that led gaming journalists to characterize him as an internet troll.
In November 2021, Roblox Corporation filed a $1.65 million federal lawsuit against Simon, alleging he had harassed other users and developers, and posted tweets containing false terrorist threats that prompted the temporary lockdown of a Roblox developer conference. The litigation was settled out of court in January 2022, with Simon agreeing to a $150,000 monetary judgment without admitting wrongdoing, as well as a legal permanent injunction banning him from the platform. Simon later publicly accused the corporation of using the lawsuit to silence his ongoing criticisms of their alleged child safety and moderation failures.
Following the settlement, Simon shifted the focus of his channel to exposing online predators within the Roblox community. His investigations contributed to the FBI arrest of a prominent Roblox game developer and the creation of "Moderation for Dummies", an independent initiative to document explicit content on the Roblox platform. In 2025, Simon became a central figure in a broader community controversy after publicly defending and collaborating with YouTuber Schlep, a fellow creator banned by the corporation for conducting unauthorized sting operations against alleged predators on the platform.
YouTube career
Early career
Simon joined the online gaming platform Roblox in 2008,[s 3] later creating a YouTube channel under the pseudonym Ruben Sim.[1] Among Simon's earliest content includes a satirical news web series titled Roblox Watch, which critiqued the executive decisions of Roblox Corporation.[s 4] Simon claimed that conflicts with the game's moderation team over the content led to the platform issuing IP bans against him.[s 4] Roblox Corporation, however, alleged in its 2021 complaint that Simon had been banned for harassing other players, as well as using homophobic and racist slurs.[2] Simon continued to bypass these restrictions by creating alternative accounts.[3][4] By November 2021, Simon's YouTube channel had amassed over 763,000 subscribers.[5]
Roblox Corporation v. Simon
| Ruben Sim (@realRubenSim) tweeted: |
gonna make the very smart decision to not comment on the complaint roblox lodged against me cause i wanna make my lawyer's and the court's job as easy as possible. when all of this is said and done you can have my side of the story. i'll still be uploading vids as usual.
November 24, 2021[s 5]
On November 23, 2021, Roblox Corporation filed a lawsuit against Simon in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.[4][6] The complaint, which invoked the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, sought $1.65 million in damages for alleged fraud and breach of contract.[6][7] The lawsuit alleged Simon had led a "cybermob" to harass users,[2] repeatedly circumvented a permanent platform-wide ban,[1] and posted false and misleading terrorist threats on social media,[7] which prompted a temporary lockdown of the 2021 Roblox Developers Conference in San Francisco.[8]
Simon initially declined to comment on the lawsuit, stating on Twitter that he wanted to simplify the legal proceedings.[s 5][3] The litigation concluded on January 14, 2022, when both parties agreed to a settlement formalized in a court-approved stipulated order.[6][9] Under the terms of the settlement, Simon agreed to a $150,000 monetary judgment without admitting wrongdoing.[9][10] He also accepted a permanent injunction banning him from the platform,[11] as well as barring him from coming within 100 feet of any Roblox corporate office.[12][13]
Following the settlement, Simon publicly addressed several of the lawsuit's allegations, broadly denying the corporation's most severe claims.[10] Simon maintained that the corporation weaponized his past terms of service violations to aggressively police his off-platform conduct and silence his ongoing criticisms of their alleged child safety and moderation failures.[10][14]
Child safety advocacy
In the years preceding and following his court-ordered ban from Roblox, Simon increasingly focused his YouTube channel on exposing alleged child predators and criticizing the platform's safety infrastructure.[10][15]
Arrest of Arnold Castillo
During September 2020, Simon began investigating a prominent Roblox game developer known by the alias DoctorRofatnik, later identified as Arnold Castillo.[10][16] Following a video published by Simon that compiled evidence of Castillo's predatory behavior, Roblox Corporation banned the DoctorRofatnik account and reported it to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.[10] Despite these actions, Castillo circumvented the ban using alternative accounts, and continued development on his Sonic the Hedgehog Roblox fan game, "Sonic Eclipse".[10][16] Later, prompted by user tweets detailing Castillo's behavior, video game developer Sega filed a copyright infringement notice against Castillo's game, and it was removed from the platform by late 2021.[17]
Castillo later utilized the platform to groom a 15-year-old girl, whom he subsequently abducted and sexually assaulted in May 2022.[17] This incident occurred 18 months after Simon and the wider community had publicly outed Castillo as a predator.[17] Following a federal investigation and his arrest by the Federal Bureau of Investigation,[10] Castillo pleaded guilty to federal charges,[18] and was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison in August 2023.[18][19]
"Moderation for Dummies"
To document alleged systemic failures in Roblox Corporation's safety infrastructure, Simon established "Moderation for Dummies", an independent initiative to monitor explicit behavior on the Roblox platform.[20][21]
In October 2024, the investment research firm Hindenburg Research utilized Simon's data in a short-seller report that accused the corporation of inflating user metrics and ignoring child safety.[21] The report cited "Moderation for Dummies" as an indication of explicit content on the platform, noting the initiative had identified approximately 12,400 accounts engaging in erotic roleplay on Roblox since September 2024.[21][22] Later, Australian advocacy group Collective Shout cited these documents in formal government submissions regarding internet search engine safety codes, additionally noting the number of identified accounts as "over 80,000" by September 2025.[23]
Collaboration with Schlep
Following similar videos published by YouTuber Schlep, who conducted independent sting operations against alleged child predators on the platform and investigated Roblox's platform moderation, Simon entered into a public partnership with him and began appearing in his videos.[24][s 6] Schlep's content involved creating decoy accounts in order to lure individuals seeking to exploit minors, later forwarding the collected evidence to local law enforcement, which resulted in several arrests.[25][26][27]
In August 2025, Roblox Corporation permanently banned Schlep and issued a cease and desist order against him, updating its terms of service to prohibit unauthorized "vigilante groups", which the corporation argued "[bypassed] Roblox’s own safety systems".[24][28] Simon rejected the corporation's labeling of Schlep's actions as "vigilantism", arguing he'd simply documented evidence for police intervention.[24]
Reception
Media coverage
Media coverage of Simon's online activities largely began in November 2021 alongside the filing of Roblox Corporation v. Simon. Initial reporting by gaming and technology publications, such as The Verge, Polygon, and PC Gamer, focused heavily on the corporation's allegations of severe harassment and terms of service violations.[1][2][8] During this coverage, journalists characterized Simon as an "internet troll" and a "cybermob" leader, owing to his history of circumventing platform bans and his posting of controversial content.[2][8]
Following the 2022 settlement and his subsequent pivot to child safety advocacy, Simon's media reception shifted, with mainstream publications and legal representatives characterizing him as a "prominent critic" of Roblox Corporation,[27] and as a creator focused on Roblox's alleged moderation problems,[24] as well as "highlighting predatory behavior" on the platform.[10]
Corporate response
Following Roblox Corporation v. Simon, both Roblox Corporation and Simon declined to further comment on the settlement, with Simon citing a confidentiality agreement.[11][10] On July 22, 2024, a Bloomberg Businessweek article detailing the FBI arrest of Arnold Castillo was released.[10] Simon served as a primary interviewee for the piece, with Roblox claiming in the article that Simon was not a "credible source of information about [Roblox's] strong safety record."[10] The next day, a Roblox spokesperson responded to Eurogamer's coverage of the article,[29] alleging Bloomberg's article "contained glaring mischaracterisations about how [Roblox] protect[s] users of all ages" and "failed to reflect ... the complexities of online child safety."[30]
In August 2025, Roblox Corporation's legal stance towards critics of the platform's safety record drew renewed scrutiny from journalists and commentators after the company released a cease-and-desist letter to the YouTuber Schlep, along with terminating his accounts on the platform.[31][24] The attorneys representing Schlep noted Roblox Corporation invoked the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act on the same basis as it had against Simon during Roblox Corporation v. Simon.[31][27] Simon retained the same law firms as Schlep in connection with these events.[27]
