“It won’t work”: The story behind Roblox’s November 9 hack hoax

It’s every gamer’s worst nightmare: you start a game, enter your login details, and find that all your items and collectibles are gone. Everything you worked hard to find is gone—or maybe an evil hacker broke into your account and stole everything. The worst part? There is nothing you can do to get your stuff back.

Tales of hacks, stolen accounts and bad actors have circulated since the early days of the internet, when players were duped into sharing usernames and passwords with people who claimed they could help them acquire a difficult collectible or make them rich with in-game currency . These types of stories are especially common on websites aimed at children, where less internet-savvy players can fall prey to hacks and scams aplenty.

Just before Halloween, stories of a massive hacking spree targeting the wildly popular children’s game Roblox filled the internet. Videos and posts claimed that players who logged in on November 9 would lose their accounts — and everything in them — to 20 “evil hackers” who hopped from server to server, banning random people as they went. These claims circulated enough that some players began to wonder if they were actually true: Wanted to login Roblox On November 9, was his account at risk?

As it turns out, the whole thing ended up being a hoax. No large-scale hack happened on November 9, no one got banned by rogue hackers, and no one lost their items—well, unless they stupidly gave their password to someone else. It was just another day for one of the most popular games on the planet.

So how did this happen? Where did the rumor start, how did it circulate, and when was it debunked?

Here is the story of Roblox November 9 hack hoax.

Humble beginnings

At the top of its circulation, “news” of the hoax spread mainly through YouTube and TikTok, two of the most popular platforms for Roblox contents. Due to the number of videos and posts made about the hack, it is not entirely clear who made it or who made the first post about it.

The single most popular post about the hoax is a TikTok video from user lily.robloss, whose video detailing what would happen to players who played the game on November 9 currently has 3.7 million views and 249,900 likes. Set to a background of Roblox gameplay and an audio titled “Quiet, Calm, Creepy Piano Songs,” lily.robloss explained via a text-to-speech feature that players logging in on November 9 were at risk of being attacked by 20 hackers. The video was posted on October 25, a few weeks before the “hack” was supposed to take place.

These hackers would supposedly move from game to game on different servers and ban or hack everyone they came across. They would also supposedly delete all of a player’s items and pets. Players affected by the hackers would not be able to create a new account or even play on the same device after uninstalling and reinstalling the game. “No matter how hard you try it’s not going to work,” the video said cryptically. “This is the information I got today.”

From there, other players made similar videos sharing the same information. It’s not clear if these videos were intended to perpetuate the scam as a joke, or if they were made by concerned players who wanted to warn others about the apparent danger.

It is important to note here that much of RobloxThe audience is made up of children, many of them as young as six or seven. While this video may seem like an obvious scare tactic to an older, more experienced internet user, the average child is much more trusting and doesn’t have the same knowledge of common internet scammers. It’s not clear if this rumor was specifically aimed at kids who wouldn’t have known better, but the game’s huge young audience is almost certainly one of the reasons why it got so big.

There is little other information available about lily.robloss. From some of their other videos they appear to be a child or at least a young person. The account does not appear to be associated with popular in any way Roblox YouTuber Lily Roblox, who uses another TikTok handle that appears to be inactive. Commenters on the original TikTok referenced another video in which lily.robloss allegedly apologized for the scam and admitted it was fake, but that video has since been deleted.

“Roblox is in danger!”

Within days, the rumor had exploded so much that YouTube personalities started talking about it. On 31 October Roblox Content creator KreekCraft, which has over 5 million subscribers, posted a video titled “Roblox is in danger! (November 9).” The video appears to be one of the most serious attempts to debunk the scam.

In the video, KreekCraft looks at lily.robloss’s video and walks viewers through each of the statements. They note that although often rumored, real hacks are very uncommon in Roblox. The most famous hack happened over 10 years ago and is known as April Fools’ Day. That breakup just took over Roblox website, resulting in players getting items they shouldn’t own and moderators being banned. Roblox developers quickly brought the area under control; no real hack has happened since then.

KreekCraft also explained that many of the supposed outcomes of the hack that lily.robloss’ video warned about were nearly impossible. Prevent users from creating new ones Roblox accounts on the same device would require a hardware ban, which is usually not issued and would require very high-level admin permissions that hackers probably couldn’t get. He also noted that while hackers could potentially kick players from their server, players would simply need to rejoin or join another server to continue playing without permanent effects.

Players who frequently play online games that require accounts are probably already familiar with all of this information. But remember, Roblox is primarily a children’s game. Even the most internet-savvy kids may not yet understand how processes like account hosting, servers, and real “hacking” really work. It’s easy to fear what you don’t understand, which played a big role in the spread of the scam.

Simple goal

On November 5th, five days after KreekCraft brought attention to lily.robloss’ video to his massive viewership, another video surfaced claiming to “expose” the video’s creator. Posted by CaptainAlofa, another Roblox TikTok creator, this video supposedly contains footage of the apology video that lily.robloss posted and then deleted.

In TikTok, which currently has 109,100 likes, CaptainAlofa claims that lily.robloss was the one who originated the hack rumor. He also claims that the later-deleted apology video was unfairly directed at him and another Roblox the creator known as galariathina. Footage from the apology video, which cannot be verified as it appears to have been deleted, shows lily.robloss calling out Captain Alofa and galariathina for “hating me” because they claimed lily.robloss’ warning was false.

Another clip from the deleted video appears to show lily.robloss admitting via text-to-speech that they made the video on November 9 for fun, and that she got a lot of “hate” for it. She made a broad apology before the clip ended. CaptainAlofa claimed in his video that lily.robloss put both him and galariathina on blast to get their large fan base to attack the two creators. Galariathina made a very similar TikTok a day later calling out lily.robloss for the same. That TikTok has since received 79,500 views.

After KreekCraft and CaptainAlofa posted their videos, Roblox players flooded lily.robloss’s recent videos, posting comments like “debunked,” even on videos that had nothing to do with the supposed hack. They don’t seem to have given any response besides the apology video that CaptainAlora and galariathina claim she posted, which can no longer be found.

This is where the trail gets cold. All of these videos were posted before November 9th, so many players probably already debunked the rumor by the time the date arrived. On the conspicuous date, nothing happened: no accounts were breached, servers were not taken down, and no “evil hackers” infiltrated other players’ games. It is impossible to say how many players actually avoided the game on November 9, which Roblox doesn’t publish daily user numbers, but the game’s audience seems to have moved on already.

Viral

It’s hard to watch this story and not think about what’s happening at Twitter, which is currently experiencing a verification calculation at the hands of Elon Musk. The constant flow of information on the internet and across national borders is a powerful tool, but it brings with it the danger of both bad actors and misinformed users.

It is impossible to tell whether lily.robloss passed on false information out of genuine concern or malicious intent. Since they appear to be a child or at least a young person, it’s hard to completely blame them, as they may have simply created something that they thought would increase their likes and followers. TikTok also has a reputation for misinformation, particularly in the scientific and medical fields; in the wake of that, it’s hard to think that it’s so important to spread rumors about a children’s game.

At the same time, the cheating was probably a hard lesson for lily.robloss. Internet users love to go amateur and look for cracks in other people’s information, and they are not afraid to call out people they consider wrong. There is a dark and sometimes dangerous underbelly of internet culture, especially when personal information such as addresses is leaked in response or in revenge.

The official one Roblox the support site has an FAQ page about hack hoaxes, but considering that some estimates put the game’s worldwide player count at over 200 million, it’s likely that many users will never get to this page, especially when it’s not as easily accessible or visually appealing like TikTok and YouTube videos.

The most important thing to take away from this is to teach the kids in your life about internet literacy – the younger the better. After all, it’s much easier to prevent your child from making a video about something they’ve made up and come off as real than to deal with the potentially damaging outcome of having them proven wrong or “debunked” on an often heartless social media platform.

Don’t believe everything you see on the internet, kids.