Ben Simon (navy898) is the online alias and character name of a well known RTer who was deleted and completely blacklisted from ROBLOX due to his YouTube series ROBLOX Watch: a satirical news "broadcast" criticizing and exposing ROBLOX's corrupt antics. Ben Simon has since accumulated over 100 deleted accounts through his ban-on-site status.
The original navy898 ban
After foruming regularly since early 2013, Ben Simon was first deleted for a post stating the then-popular game developer, loleris, did not recieve the Opened Cool Gift of Nice and Busy Users, a gift with qualifications that include not having been moderated in the past year. The post was made in the context of frequent discussion regarding loleris having one of his posts edited by a moderator for containing an email address. Through ROBLOX Watch, Ben Simon claimed that loleris had broken the rules and that he should no longer be eligible for the Developer Exchange program (in 2013 any minor infraction on a users moderation history could result in suspension or disqualification from the program). Ben Simon also claimed that ROBLOX moderators were made to give leniency to loleris for being the "frontman" for DevEx.
The forum post included on the deletion in its entirety is as follows: (Subject) Guess what game developer didn't get the niceness gift? (Body) I'll give you a hint: loleris
The deletion was featured in Season 1 Episode 5 of ROBLOX Watch. Ben Simon spent a month trying to appeal the ban, and in the process exposed corrupt and lazy methods customer service use to ignore emails and blacklist senders. navy898 is referenced often in videos from various ROBLOX YouTubers and from random users on the forums.
ROBLOX Watch
A still of Ben Simon from ROBLOX Watch
The first episode of ROBLOX Watch was uploaded on October 28th, 2014. It was released in light of the October 24th Twitch Incident to cover both the incident itself and the aftermath. Included in the episode was an edited audio recording where Ben Simon can be heard saying "nice meme" after JacksSmirkingRevenge claimed "ROBLOX doesn't give a fuck about our department".
Over the course of two years the series has developed two seasons and a grand total of 19 episodes ranging from lengths of one minute and ten seconds to a 24 minute episode in Season 2. Most topics contain a base level of truth but usually include fictional details for comedic value, such as Legoseed being being beaten and held at gunpoint to ban users after being hired as a moderator, or a green screen at a ROBLOX fashion place being used to produce avant-garde pornography.
The series is believed to be the source of Ben Simon's ban-on-site status, as several accounts featured in the series were terminated shortly after the episodes including them were uploaded.
Ban-On-Site Status
A gigantic memorial to navy898
Likely due to ROBLOX Watch, Ben Simon is under frequent surveillance by several ROBLOX moderators to delete any active accounts owned by him. Typically, if a user includes the name "Ben Simon" in a forum post (especially on ATR) the thread will be deleted and the poster possibly banned, or even deleted depending on his/her join date. This has caused Ben Simon to be deleted on over 100 accounts, poison banned, IP banned and has created an auto-complete list for the Username field that extends well beyond the login page starting at the letter J.
It was first revealed that moderators were actively searching for Ben's accounts after a Twitter post revelaed his new main account as KurtCoban. Within hours of Tweeting this, despite having no forum posts or site activity other than joining games, KurtCoban was deleted. The only way a moderator could presume KurtCoban belonged to Ben Simon is through his Twitter. This was criticized in ROBLOX Watch, as any account could have been mentioned as his main account and been deleted, regardless of whether or not it actually belonged to Ben.
Since then, Ben has refused to be public about any of his accounts. Many users consider him to be a martyr for sacraficing his freedom on the site to continue uploading ROBLOX Watch videos. Often times users will create alt accounts to spam the forums with his name in an attempt to anger the moderators, which almost always results in a deletion. Ben has currently put ROBLOX Watch on hiatus due to a number of personal problems in his life.
MisterObvious Incident
On June 14th 2017, Ben Simon created and uploaded a video to his YouTube channel detailing ongoing child sex crimes committed by fellow ROBLOX YouTuber MisterObvious. The video garnered over 15,000 views in less than a week and caught the attention of several ROBLOX staff members. In the video, Ben Simon showed ~50 different instances of MisterObvious, aged 22, trying to sexually solicit young girls aged between 13 and 15.
The resulting backlash caused MisterObvious to lose nearly all of his fans and prompted an investigation by ROBLOX admins aided by law enforcement. Frustrated and humiliated, MisterObvious sought out to attack Ben Simon and threaten to sue if he did not delete all posts related to him. In response, Ben Simon encouraged his Twitter audience to create memes out of the "WARNING LETTER" MisterObvious fabricated.
Trivia
- Gordonrox24 is infamous for being one of the moderators responsible for Ben Simon's deletions. Gordonrox24 has since then quit ROBLOX and is now on good terms with Ben.
- Ben Simon copied the joke regarding moderators loving Hot Pockets from the 4chan meme "He Does It For Free".
- Ben Simon has been diagnosed with clinical depression.
- There's some shoe company that's differently named in his honor