Roblox accused of being a 'hunting ground' for child predators as legal firestorm against gaming giant intensifies
The lawsuit, filed late last week in a Georgia state court by an anonymous DeKalb County mother and her young son, accuses Roblox of negligence as well as prioritizing growth over child safety.
It follows a recent wave of similar lawsuits lodged against the $90 billion company that accuse the popular gaming platform of not doing enough to safeguard children from pedophiles.
In a statement to Business Insider on Tuesday, a Roblox spokesperson said, "We are deeply troubled by any incident that endangers our users, and safety is a top priority."
"We dedicate substantial resources, including advanced technology and 24/7 human moderation, to help detect and prevent inappropriate content and behavior, including attempts to direct users off platform, where safety standards and moderation may be less stringent than ours," the spokesperson said.
The latest lawsuit alleges that these predators harassed the boy for months and ultimately "extorted" him to send sexually explicit images and videos to his friends at school.
As a result, the boy has "suffered devastating and life-altering psychological trauma" and was eventually required to change schools, the lawsuit says.
"Had Defendant implemented even the most basic system of age and identity verification, as well as effective parental controls, Plaintiff would never have engaged with this predator and never been harmed," the lawsuit says.
In July, Roblox announced a new age verification system, which includes an age estimation tool based on a selfie-style video, for users who want to chat back-and-forth with so-called "trusted connections." "If the system estimates that a user is actually under 13, then we will automatically correct the user's age to under 13 and remove access to features that are not appropriate," Roblox says on its website.
The Georgia mother's attorney, Matthew Dolman of the Florida-based firm Dolman Law Group, told Business Insider that he expects even more lawsuits to be filed in the near future and that his firm is currently investigating over 300 incidents on behalf of prospective claimants.
"Roblox has materially misrepresented that its product is safe on multiple occasions knowing full well that law enforcement investigations resulting in arrests of sexual predators are occurring nationwide," Dolman said.
Nearly 40% of Roblox's user base is under 13
Roblox, a top gaming platform among children and teens, hosts millions of user-generated games called "experiences" that range from racing to horror-themed.
The Georgia lawsuit, which seeks a jury trial and an unspecified amount in monetary damages, says that Roblox hosts a "staggering number" of games centered on simulated sexual activity.
The court documents also cited some games with titles like "Survive Diddy" and "Escape to Epstein Island" in reference to hip-hop mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs, who was recently convicted of two prostitution-related federal charges, and late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
When Roblox announced its latest earnings in July, the company reported an average of 111.8 million daily active users with a user base of nearly 40% under the age of 13.
The latest lawsuit — which includes identical pages of allegations cited in separate, but similar lawsuits against Roblox — said the Georgia boy is just "one of countless children whose lives have been devastated" thanks to Roblox's "gross negligence and defectively designed app."
The Roblox spokesperson told Business Insider: "While no system is perfect, Roblox has implemented rigorous safeguards, including restrictions on sharing personal information, links, and user-to-user image sharing, and prohibiting sexual conversations."
"We also partner with law enforcement and leading child safety organizations worldwide to combat the sexual exploitation of children," the spokesperson said.
Roblox recently deployed an open-source AI-powered system called Sentinel that it says was designed to help detect any early indicators of child endangerment interactions.
The AI system, the company said, helped it submit about 1,200 reports of potential attempts at child exploitation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the first half of the year.
Roblox has faced at least five more lawsuits this year alleging the sexual exploitation of children.
The lawsuits come after an October 2024 report by the prominent short-seller Hindenburg Research accused Roblox of being an "X-rated pedophile hellscape" and "exposing children to grooming, pornography, violent content and extremely abusive speech."
The group-chatting platform Discord has been named as a co-defendant in those other lawsuits, all filed by the same Pennsylvania-based personal injury law firm, Anapol Weiss.
A Discord spokesperson told Business Insider that the company does not comment on ongoing litigation, but said, "Any content or behavior that endangers younger users is not allowed on Discord."
"Discord is deeply committed to safety and we require all users to be at least 13 to use our platform," the spokesperson said. "Using a range of technological and human moderation approaches, we work hard to proactively detect and remove content that violates our policies, report violations to NCMEC, and maintain robust systems to prevent sexual exploitation and grooming."
One lawsuit filed last month in a California federal court alleges that a 14-year-old girl was groomed on Roblox by an adult predator masquerading as another teen. The complaint says the conversation between them moved over to Discord where the man repeatedly sent sexually explicit messages and photographs.
The lawsuit says the man eventually lured the Alabama girl from her home and attempted to sexually assault her. Police intervened and the man was arrested, the lawsuit says.
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