CUYAHOGA COUNTY, Ohio — A Cuyahoga County family has sued Roblox, the popular online gaming platform used by millions of children, alleging it failed to protect users from sexual predators and sexually explicit content.
In the federal lawsuit, the mother of a 13-year-old boy alleges her son was targeted by a predator posing as a child on the platform. The predator gained the boy's trust before sending graphic messages and sexually explicit images, according to Sara Beller, the family's attorney, whose Florida-based firm has filed over 30 lawsuits against Roblox.
"Then, of course, he ended up unfortunately manipulating the young boy into sending explicit images of himself as well by threatening to physically harm both the boy and his family if he did not comply with those demands to do so," Beller said.
The lawsuit also details other cases where children were sexually exploited and abused by predators who posed as children on the app. Beller said Roblox has created a platform that "caters to pedophiles."
"To me, Roblox is an incredibly irresponsible platform the way that its run," she said.
The lawsuit also claims predators using the app as a "hunting ground" for children isn't the only problem.
The lawsuit also said Roblox fails to monitor and control user-generated content. For example, the lawsuit claims Roblox hosted over 600 "Diddy" games on its platform that appear to recreate incidents involving music mogul Sean "Puffy" Combs, who was convicted of sexually-related crimes in July.
"They [Roblox] know that there are pedophiles on the platform, they know this is a pervasive issue, they've known that for years," Beller said.
Roblox's response
News 5 reached out to Roblox. A spokesperson emailed us the following response:
"We are deeply troubled by any incident that endangers our users. While we cannot comment on claims raised in litigation, protecting children is a top priority, which is why our policies are purposely stricter than those found on many other platforms. We recently announced our plans to require facial age checks for all users accessing chat features, making us the first online gaming or communication platform to do so. This innovation enables age-based chat and limits communication between minors and adults. We also limit chat for younger users, don't allow the sharing of external images, and have filters designed to block the sharing of personal information.
"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. We understand that no system is perfect, which is why we are constantly working to improve our safety tools and platform restrictions. We have launched 145 new safety initiatives this year alone and recognize this is an industry-wide issue requiring collaborative standards and solutions.
We encourage anyone to report content or behavior that may violate our Community Standards using our Report Abuse feature. We also partner with law enforcement and leading child safety and mental health organizations worldwide to combat the sexual exploitation of children such as the Tech Coalition's [technologycoalition.org] Lantern [technologycoalition.org] project and Robust Open Online Safety Tools or ROOST [roost.tools]."
What should parents do?
Beller said parents should have conversations with their kids about the risks associated with using Roblox.
She also recommended parents more closely monitor their children's online activities - and not be afraid to go through your child's phone.
Safety experts said parents should also activate parental controls on their kids' devices.
Finally, parents should set up their own Roblox account - and then connect it to their child's account to control their online interactions.
Regarding her client's case, Beller said, "This could absolutely happen to anyone, unfortunately."
