The state of Louisiana has filed a lawsuit against Roblox for its failure to protect kids from predatory behavior. The past month has not been a particularly favorable one for the gaming platform, which currently boasts an average daily user count of over 80 million. Allowing visitors to both create and play games, and even earn a little money, Roblox seems an ideal place for people to share their passion for virtual worlds.
At its base, Roblox is a free-to-play experience and also has a rating system intended to increase its appeal to a younger player base, a tactic that has largely succeeded. Over 40 percent of the platform’s users are pre-teen. Unfortunately, the other half of the user base includes an alarming number of child predators, whom many observers claim are not being effectively monitored or curtailed in their behaviors. The situation has gained so much attention, in fact, that To Catch a Predator’s Chis Hansen is rumored to be making a documentary about Roblox and its issues with ensuring child safety.
'If You're Not Comfortable, Don't Let Your Kids Be on Roblox' CEO Comments on the Game's Child Safety Controversy
Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki responds to criticism over the game's child safety, saying parents should act based on their own comfort level.
Louisiana State Sues Roblox for Failing to Protect Children
On top of that, on August 14, Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill filed a “child protection” lawsuit against Roblox for “permitting and perpetuating an online environment in which child predators thrive.” Specifically, the suit aims to protect the children of Louisiana, but it may have wider implications if successful. More than half of the player base, 56 percent, is aged 16 and below, yet there is no minimum age to play the game, no age verification, and no need for parental permissions. And many people, including the Louisiana state lawsuit, are calling out the CEO of Roblox Corporation for failing to act sufficiently to ensure kids' safety. CEO David Baszucki, says the filing, even encourages the development of games to attract adults, which shows a "willingness to compromise safety, creating... More dangerous circumstances for children."
…an environment rife with neglect, where harmful content flourishes, predators thrive, and Defendant repeatedly fails to act even in the face of widespread and urgent warnings.
This has led to multiple documented instances of children being groomed and even abused as a result of their interactions with predators while playing . In July, a Des Moines, Iowa, family filed suit against Roblox after their 13-year-old daughter was abducted and assaulted by a stranger she met on the gaming platform. The girl had been playing Roblox since she was eight years old, which her parents allowed because they believed it was safe. But the “child” she was chatting with and later agreed to meet up with turned out to be a 37-year-old man named Martin Amaya Sandoval, who already had statutory assault charges pending against him in another state.
Just a few days before Louisiana filed its lawsuit against the gaming company, the country of Qatar banned Roblox entirely, apparently for similar concerns. In July 2024, the country of Turkey did the same thing, and that ban is still in place. That country cited child safety and moral threats as the reason. Louisiana went even further, calling out specific games that are or were available on the platform, like “Epstein Island” and “Diddy Party.” Thus far, these legal moves by individuals and governments seem to have had no discernible impact on Roblox, its popularity, or the developer’s motivation to implement stronger child safety measures, and the platform’s stock value has continued to rise.
OpenCritic Reviews
- Released
- September 1, 2006
- ESRB
- Teen / Diverse Content: Discretion Advised, In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items), Users Interact
- Developer(s)
- Roblox Corporation
- Publisher(s)
- Roblox Corporation
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Game Creation System
