Families sue Roblox, claiming kids were exposed to predators – NBC Los Angeles

A Los Angeles County mother said her daughter met a sexual predator on the popular children’s gaming platform Roblox, claiming the company is not doing enough to protect vulnerable players who are too young to understand the dangers of interacting with strangers. 

The mother, who was named Mary Doe in a lawsuit filed against Roblox and Discord, said the gaming platform and the online chat site for minors seemed innocent, never imagining that her family would deal with a nightmare.  

“You shouldn’t have to rebuild your life at 13 years old,” Mary Doe said about her daughter. 

NBC Los Angeles exclusively spoke with the mother without revealing her identity or voice as she wished to protect her daughter’s privacy. But she admitted that after what she said has happened, getting back to a sense of normalcy won’t be easy. 

“I still have these photos that are floating around of her, these videos of her with her young body,” the mother explained. “That’s not fair to her. She didn’t know what she was doing.”

Roblox is designed for children and allows users as young as age 5 to join, while Discord has a minimum age requirement of 13. 

Mary Doe’s complaint said Roblox wasn’t safe for her daughter. 

“It should not be marketed to children at all if they can’t safeguard the children. Then it should not be marketed to them,” she said. 

Mary Doe said she didn’t initially have any concerns when her then-12-year-old daughter signed up for Roblox in 2024. Her two older siblings had used the platform without any concerns.

But she said the 12-year-old’s behavior changed: she failed 7th grade, and the mom discovered the girl had befriended a person, who claimed to be a 15-year-old girl, on Roblox. 

“She had an apartment. She was trying to get my daughter to Fullertson, so she was not 15. She was an adult,” Mary Doe said. “The girl asked her to come over to Discord to start these chatrooms to start.”

The lawsuit alleges explicit messages and images, including those of Mary Doe’s daughter, were shared on Discord. 

Another Southern California family is suing Roblox, claiming their child met a man on Roblox, who then lured and sexually assaulted the child. 

“Roblox advertises itself as not only safe but an educational platform for children. And the overwhelming number of users on Roblox are minors,” Steven Vanderporten, a Chicago attorney who represents the Riverside family. 

The man, who assaulted the Riverside child, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In this case, the family is only using Roblox, not Discord. 

“It’s become a haven for predators who know that they can access and chat with children as young as five by signing up and accessing these game experiences,” Vanderporten said. 

Roblox told NBC Los Angeles that it typically doesn’t comment on the specifics of ongoing litigation, but provided the following statement: 

“We are deeply troubled by any incident that endangers any user. Roblox aims to build a platform that sets the bar for safety online, and we prioritize the safety of our community. This is why our policies are purposely stricter than those found on many other platforms. We limit chat for younger users, don’t allow user-to-user image sharing, and have filters designed to block the sharing of personal information. We also understand that no system is perfect and that is why we are constantly working to further improve our safety tools and platform restrictions to ensure parents can trust us to help keep their children safe online, launching 145 new initiatives this year alone.  

We also understand this is an industry-wide issue and we are working to develop industry-wide standards and solutions. For instance, Roblox is implementing an industry-leading policy to help prevent older users from communicating with children by requiring a sophisticated facial age estimation process for all Roblox users who access our communications features. We partner with law enforcement and leading child safety and mental health organizations worldwide to combat the sexual exploitation of children and are a founding member of the Tech Coalition’s Lantern project and the nonprofit Robust Open Online Safety Tools (ROOST).” – Roblox spokesperson

Additional Background Information: 

Users of all ages want a safe and civil platform on the internet and that is what we aim to provide. Every day, tens of millions of people around the world use Roblox to learn STEM skills, play, and imagine and have a safe experience on our platform. 

• ·  We aim to set a new bar for online safety and are always working to improve. In the past year, Roblox has introduced over 145 new initiatives, including updated parental controls, stricter defaults for users under 13, and new content maturity labels. 

• ·  We know inappropriate communications are a concern and Roblox is implementing an industry-leading age check policy.  Users who want to communicate on Roblox will need to confirm their age via a sophisticated new system using facial age estimation, ID verification, or verified parent consent. Under our systems, for instance, users 13- 18 can only privately chat with adults they know in real life, and users younger than 13 cannot use private text chat or voice chat at all without parental consent. Please find more information here. 

• ·  Default protections for all users include such landmark policies as no image-sharing allowed in chat, and strict filters against inappropriate language, personally identifiable information (such as email addresses, or phone numbers), and attempts to move conversations off-platform. We also restrict private text chat or voice chat for users younger than 13. 

• ·  We recognize the reality and urgency of the safety challenges that confront us and continually strengthen our protections, make significant safety investments and evolve our systems. Our Community Standards set clear expectations for how to behave on Roblox and define restricted experiences. Our moderation is multi-layered, employing thousands of trained human experts helped by advanced AI moderation systems.

• ·  We know safety is as critically important to families as it is to us, and we aim to be a strong partner to parents to support their child’s online experiences. Parents can: 

• Block or limit specific experiences based on content maturity ratings 
• Block or report people on their child’s friends list 
• See which experiences their child is spending the most time in 
• Set daily screen time and spending limits 
• Families and caregivers can find resources detailing our safety measureshere. (See blog posts from November 2024 and April 2025, and new safety tools for teens.) 

• ·  Roblox collaborates with law enforcement, government agencies, mental health organizations, and parental advocacy groups to create resources for parents and to keep users safe on the platform. Through vigorous global outreach, we’ve developed deep and lasting relationships with law enforcement at the international, federal, state, and local levels.