A Roblox Player Trolled White House Press Corps For Online Clout
A Roblox player posing under the alias "Kacey Montagu" was, for weeks, able to relay questions to White House press secretary Jen Psaki through members of the White House press corps, as well as gain high-level White House officials and journalists as Twitter followers for two specially-made accounts, according to a recent report. The motivation was purportedly impressing a Roblox role-playing group, nUSA, which simulates the American government.
The group is believed to be one of the largest in the game, with some 205,000 members and mock cities and government agencies. At one point Montagu was Secretary of State, but resigned because the President went to war with the U.K. Roblox is nominally a free-to-play game with microtransactions, but more accurately a game platform, allowing people to spin off their own worlds and experiences.
The deception was exposed in an investigation by Politico, which spoke to Montagu and members of nUSA, among other sources. The person's true identity is unknown, but in talking with government officials and nonprofit journalism and government-tracking organizations, Montagu claimed to be an 18-year-old law student born in the U.S. but raised in the U.K. In one conversation they claimed to be studying political science. Contacted by Politico directly, Montagu said they thought the White House press corps was doing a bad job, and that their motivation was ensuring transparency and asking questions they and their friends wanted to be answered.
Montagu obtained financial disclosures from Psaki and President Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, by filing Freedom of Information Act requests. The person at one point posed as a part of the White House Correspondents Association, specifically as a reporter for The Daily Mail - a British tabloid not known for its White House coverage. They have also passed as a correspondent for a fictional news outlet, called White House News. Questions were directed at President Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, and Vice President Kamala Harris, and Montagu asked other officials about a possible in-person day pass for a "colleague," though the person said a formal request was never made.
Montagu has since vanished from social media sites like LinkedIn. The Twitter accounts, @WHSchedule and @WHPoolReport, have been suspended, although they were accurate reposts of things like presidential schedules and activities. These were followed by people including White House correspondents, and even members of the Biden administration like Jill Biden's press secretary and the spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris. It's not yet clear if the fallout has extended to Roblox - which recently went public on the New York Stock Exchange - but screenshots of Montagu's exploits have previously been shared by nUSA members, and could hypothetically leak to the public.
Source: Politico