"Active Shooter Studios" Recreates Real Life Mass Shootings On Gaming Apps
A group of Roblox users is re-creating real life school shooting incidents on the gaming platform that's popular with kids, including attacks at Columbine High School and the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.
Known as "Active Shooter Studios," or A.S.S., the group has attracted hundreds of fans on Roblox to its detailed re-creations of the events, according to a report prepared by the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism.
A.S.S.'s influence has extended to other platforms, according to the report, including a private Discord server that has been used as a central hub for discussion and promotion of content. It has also been seen on TikTok, where users share content or ask for links to games, and Reddit, where users shared copies of A.S.S.'s maps. One YouTube video posted to the A.S.S. Discord server introduces a game based on the Virginia Tech shooting of 2007, which contains live footage from the attack and has received dozens of comments.
A.S.S. specializes in making highly detailed, disturbing re-creations of actual tragedies, the ADL said. The group is part of a larger online subculture known as TCC, many of whose followers have a fascination with serial killers and mass murderers. A.S.S. had also been running a Roblox group that contained about 800 members, where the leaders share announcements and promote their Discord server, according to the report. Roblox said it shut the group down last Friday after being contacted by the ADL.
"The maps created by A.S.S. are not simple game environments-they are disturbingly graphic and detailed, designed to mimic the mass shootings they're based on with unsettling accuracy and gore," according to the ADL report. In A.S.S.'s games, players maim or dismember other players or characters, actions that are nominally prohibited by Roblox's community standards.
Games that re-create incidents of mass violence can desensitize young people to such events and normalize the re-creations as a form of entertainment, according to the ADL.
In one A.S.S. group game seen by Bloomberg, more than 60 players gathered in a re-creation of the events at Columbine. Gamers' Lego-like avatars formed a mob in front of the school holding pitchforks and repeating the White supremacist phrase "You will not replace us." Players with guns shot students while other players dressed as police officers attempted to gun down the attackers.
The game was removed. However, later the same day a new shooting game that advertised its connection to A.S.S. debuted, attracting more than 1,000 visits before it too was removed.
"Roblox is committed to safety and civility, and our Community Standards explicitly prohibit any content or behavior that depicts, supports, glorifies, or promotes terrorist or extremist organizations in any way," a Roblox spokesperson said in a statement to Bloomberg. "We take steps to remove violative material and accounts from our platform detected by our AI scans, flagged by users, or flagged by external organizations."
Discord said it has a "zero-tolerance policy against content that glorifies violence on our platform. We take decisive actions when we detect violations of our policies, including removing content, banning users, shutting down servers, and engaging with law enforcement."
The Discord server referred to in the ADL report was removed by Discord's Counter Extremism team on April 18, before it was notified by the ADL, according to the company. Discord has removed several accounts related to the community leaders of A.S.S. and has set up alerts so they can track and ban the accounts if they return.
A spokesperson for TikTok said its Community Guidelines "prohibit the promotion or incitement of violence, including praising a violent act, and we do not allow anyone to promote violent or hateful actors."
Representatives for Reddit and YouTube didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Leaders of the A.S.S. community couldn't be reached for comment.
Roblox Corp., which attracts about 85 million players to its platform daily, has struggled at times to police content. The site is particularly popular with younger kids, though in recent years has begun skewing to older teens and young adults. The company has been called out by researchers and law enforcement officials for not doing enough to protect children from sexual predators and has had to deal with other games inspired by real-life mass shootings for years.
The ADL previously found re-creations of the mosque shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019, which were later taken down.
Roblox said "the vast majority" of the community on its platform doesn't seek out the A.S.S. content and it is not easily searchable through our the site's discovery mechanism. "And because of the swift, proactive safety measures we have in place, it is very unlikely users would be exposed to such content on our platform," the spokesperson said. "Combatting content that supports extremist views is an internet-wide challenge, as these individuals constantly try to evade detection."
Roblox works with organizations including the United Nations-supported Tech Against Terrorism initiative and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which gave Roblox a high score on moderating hate online. The company is constantly evaluating and improving its moderation practices, according to the spokesperson.
Despite Roblox's efforts to take down the maps created by A.S.S., the group continues to find ways to make the content available, according to the report. For example, it has turned to hosting games on paid Roblox private servers, which give players control over who is admitted to the spaces and make it harder to be detected by Roblox and have their accounts suspended.
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