Child safety: how a children's platform ended up in court

In plain terms

Roblox is an online platform where children play games made by other users and talk to each other while they play. Adults who want to harm children have used it to find them, win their trust and move the conversation to other apps.

Since 2024 this has been documented by journalists, alleged in lawsuits by more than a dozen US states, and partly addressed by new age checks. If you read one section, read how grooming tends to work. New to Roblox? Start here.

Key facts

• Roblox passed 100 million daily users in mid-2025 and reported 144 million by the end of that year. Roughly a third to two-fifths of them are under 13.
• Roblox's reports of suspected child exploitation to the US clearing house NCMEC rose from almost 3,000 in 2022 to more than 13,000 in 2023.
• A 2024 Bloomberg Businessweek investigation counted at least 24 people arrested in the US since 2018 for abducting or abusing children they had groomed on Roblox.
• Since August 2025, more than a dozen US states have sued or opened investigations. Five have settled for a combined figure above $50 million.
• Since January 2026 nobody can use chat without an age check, and since mid-2026 accounts are sorted into three age tiers.

How solid is this?

The main claims in this article, and what stands behind each. The labels are explained on the Start here page.

Why Roblox is a different kind of problem

Roblox is not a game. It is a platform that hosts millions of games, called experiences, made by its own users. A child who opens Roblox can be in a pet-collecting game one minute and a role-play hangout the next, and each of those was built by a different stranger with different ideas about what belongs in it.

Three things make it unusual among large platforms.

• The audience is very young. In 2024 about 40% of players were under 13.¹ In the second quarter of 2025, with 111.8 million daily users, the under-13 share was 36%.⁹ No other platform of this size has a core audience of primary-school children.
• Children and adults share the same space. Among users who had completed an age check by spring 2026, about 35% were under 13, 38% were 13 to 17 and 27% were adults.⁵ For most of the platform's history, nothing separated those groups.
• It is social by design. Chat, friend lists, private servers and voice are not side features. They are what makes the platform sticky, and they are also exactly what someone looking for children needs.

It also has its own currency. Robux can be given as a gift, and to a ten-year-old a few hundred Robux is a serious offer. That turns out to matter a great deal.

How grooming on Roblox tends to work

Court filings, police statements and press investigations describe the same sequence again and again. Knowing the shape of it is the single most useful thing a parent can take from this article.

1. Contact inside a game. An adult, usually posing as a child or teenager, starts talking to a child in a public game. Role-play and hangout games are the most common setting because talking is the whole point of them.
2. Building trust. Compliments, shared jokes, playing together repeatedly, becoming "best friends". This can take hours or months.
3. Gifts. Robux, game passes or rare in-game items. The gift creates a sense of debt, and often comes with a request to keep it secret.
4. Moving off the platform. The adult asks the child to continue on Discord, Snapchat or another app. Roblox chat is filtered and monitored; those apps are far less so. Nearly every serious case involves this step, which is why Discord is named as a co-defendant in several lawsuits.¹
5. Escalation. Requests for photos, sexual conversation, video calls, and in the worst cases a meeting in person. Once an image exists it is often used as blackmail to get more.

Bloomberg's reporters found dark-web forums where offenders swapped advice on getting around Roblox's chat filters using deliberate misspellings and emoji.¹ The filters catch a lot. They were never going to catch everything.

Organised exploitation groups

A separate and newer threat comes from networks such as 764 and CVLT, loosely connected online groups that the FBI classes as nihilistic violent extremists. Their aim is not money or sex in the usual sense but control: coercing children into self-harm, into harming pets or siblings, or into producing abuse material, and then sharing the results for status within the group. Roblox has acknowledged that these groups have operated on its platform, and in February 2026 the FBI's Boston office warned that thousands of known cases involve such groups targeting children through games.¹

Sexual content inside games

"Condo games" are user-made experiences built for sexual role-play. They break Roblox's rules and are deleted when found, often within hours, but new copies are uploaded constantly and advertised through Discord servers that alert members when a fresh one is live.¹ Hindenburg's researchers, and later the state of Louisiana, pointed to an experience called "Public Bathroom Simulator Vibe" as an example of sexualised content that had been openly accessible to registered child accounts.¹

What the investigations found

People Make Games, 2021

The YouTube channel People Make Games published two investigations in 2021. The first argued that Roblox's developer economy exploited the children building games on it. The second, in December, included an interview with a woman who had been sexually exploited at twelve by an adult Roblox developer. That developer was later sentenced to 15 years in prison for transporting a 15-year-old across state lines.¹

Bloomberg Businessweek, July 2024

After eight months of reporting, Bloomberg published the most detailed account to date. Its central finding was the arrest count: at least 24 people in the US since 2018 charged with abducting or sexually abusing children they had first groomed on Roblox.¹ It also described an understaffed moderation operation set against a platform that kept growing.

Hindenburg Research, October 2024

On 8 October 2024 the short-seller Hindenburg Research published a report calling Roblox "an X-rated pedophile hellscape".² Its researchers registered accounts as children and reported finding groups trading abuse material and sexual games within minutes. The report also claimed Roblox inflated its daily user count by 25% to 42%.⁸

Two cautions apply. Hindenburg held a short position, meaning it profited when the share price fell, and it did fall sharply. And Roblox rejected the report as misleading. But the child-safety findings were largely consistent with what Bloomberg had published three months earlier, and they were later quoted in state lawsuits.⁴

The numbers Roblox reports itself

US platforms must report suspected child sexual exploitation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). Roblox's reports went from almost 3,000 in 2022 to more than 13,000 in 2023.³

This figure needs care. A rising number can mean more abuse, better detection, or both. Roblox argues it reflects better detection. Critics point out that Roblox's count is still small beside platforms with comparable audiences, and ask whether that reflects safety or under-detection. The honest answer is that nobody outside the company can tell from the number alone.

The Schlep affair

In August 2025 Roblox sent a cease-and-desist letter to a YouTuber known as Schlep, who ran sting operations: posing as a child, collecting evidence against adults who made sexual advances, and passing it to police. Roblox terminated his accounts and banned him.¹

The company's position was that vigilante stings break its rules, involve adults pretending to be children, and can compromise real investigations. That is also the standard view of most police forces. The public reaction was nonetheless furious. Several creators left Roblox's official video programme in protest, the share price dropped by more than 10%, and the journalist Chris Hansen announced a documentary, released in February 2026.¹

The episode mattered less for its details than for what it did to the story. Until then, child safety on Roblox was a subject for investors and specialist reporters. Afterwards it was something the players themselves were angry about, and Louisiana filed the first state lawsuit that same month.

What Roblox changed, and when

Roblox's safety rules were rewritten almost entirely between late 2024 and mid-2026. The direction is consistent: less contact between strangers, and less contact across age groups.

1. Nov 2024Under-13s barred from "social hangout" experiences. Direct messages to under-13s blocked by default. Content labels replace the old age guidelines, and parents get remote controls from their own account.⁷
2. Jul 2025"Trusted Connections" introduced: teenagers who pass an age check can chat with fewer filters, but only with people they know. Adults need a phone contact or QR code scanned in person to connect with a verified teenager.¹
3. Aug 2025Hangout games featuring private spaces such as bedrooms and bathrooms restricted to users aged 17 and over who have verified with government ID.¹
4. Nov 2025Roblox announces that all chat will require an age check, either an ID upload or a facial age estimate run by the vendor Persona. Chat is off by default for under-9s.¹
5. Dec 2025Age checks become mandatory in Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands.¹
6. Jan 2026Age checks for chat become mandatory worldwide.¹
7. May–Jun 2026Three account tiers roll out. Kids (5–8): chat off, mildest content only. Select (9–15): chat with similar ages and parent-approved friends. Standard (16+): full access, with restricted content held back until 18. Unverified accounts are treated as Kids.⁵

The lawsuits

Private lawsuits from families go back to 2022, and by 2025 one law firm alone said it was investigating hundreds of cases.¹ The private cases have since been consolidated in a federal multidistrict litigation in California under Judge Richard Seeborg.⁵

What changed the picture was the states. Beginning with Louisiana in August 2025, attorneys general started suing Roblox directly, generally arguing that it misrepresented how safe the platform was and that its design made children easy to reach.

Source for the table: ¹, ⁶. Florida and Oklahoma have also brought cases; Oklahoma's alleges that the safety failures were intentional despite the new age checks.⁵

The settlements follow a pattern: money earmarked for child-safety education and law-enforcement units, and binding commitments on age verification and chat restrictions that the state can enforce. Alabama's and Mississippi's deals each carry an extra $5 million penalty if Roblox breaks the terms.¹

Countries that blocked it

Outside the US, some governments skipped the courtroom. Turkey blocked Roblox in August 2024. Qatar and Kuwait followed in August 2025, Algeria in September, Iraq in October, and Russia in December 2025. Egypt moved to a full ban in February 2026.¹

These bans should not be read as a single verdict. Some cite child exploitation directly. Others, Russia's in particular, cite "LGBT propaganda" and extremism and are better understood as part of a wider pattern of internet control.¹ The Philippines threatened a ban in March 2026 and withdrew it in April after Roblox promised stronger safeguards. Australia's eSafety commissioner extracted further commitments in August 2026 after finding adults could still view children's accounts and send them requests.¹

Do the age checks work?

Partly. The honest summary is that they raise the cost of doing harm without removing the possibility.

What they do well. Sorting users into age bands and blocking chat across them removes the easiest route: an adult opening a chat window with a nine-year-old in a public game. Default-off chat for the youngest children is a real change, and it shifts the burden from the child to the system.

Where they fall short.

• Estimation is approximate. Persona's facial estimate has a reported average error of about 1.4 years for under-18s.⁵ That is enough to put a 14-year-old in the wrong band.
• It can be fooled. Reporters documented checks being passed with photographs and drawn-on features, and age-verified accounts appeared for sale online for a few dollars within days of the mandate.⁵
• It does not cover the next app. The most dangerous step in the grooming sequence is the move to another platform. No Roblox setting follows a child to Discord or Snapchat.
• It creates a new privacy question. Children's faces or identity documents now pass through a third-party vendor. In May 2026 two advocacy groups filed a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission alleging Roblox misrepresented its safety features and improperly collected data on young users. Roblox disputes this.¹

The company in its own words

Roblox's public statements have not always helped it. Asked by the BBC in March 2025 what he would say to worried parents, chief executive David Baszucki answered that if they were not comfortable, they should not let their children be on Roblox.¹ In November 2025, asked on a New York Times podcast about the problem of predators, he said:

We think of it not necessarily just as a problem, but an opportunity as well.

In fairness to the company: it employs around 3,000 moderators,¹ has never allowed images to be sent in chat, and has now gone further on age verification than any comparable platform. Its argument is that it is being judged for problems the whole internet has, while doing more than most to fix them. The states' argument is that it built a product for young children, told parents it was safe, and took the fixes seriously only when sued. Both of those can be true at once.

What parents can actually do

None of this means a child cannot play Roblox. It means the default settings are a starting point rather than a guarantee.

1. Link a parent account. Parental controls now work from your own account and phone. Set them there, not on the child's device, and protect them with a PIN.
2. Enter the real birth date. The age tiers only work if the account's age is true. Many children were signed up years ago with a made-up adult birthday.
3. Decide on chat deliberately. For younger children, off or friends-only is reasonable. Approve friends yourself where the tier allows it.
4. Check the friend list together. Ask who each person is. "A friend from a game" is the answer to follow up on.
5. Watch for the move off-platform. This is the warning sign that matters most. Someone a child met in a game asking them to join Discord, Snapchat or any other app is the point at which to step in.
6. Be suspicious of gifts. Unexplained Robux, or new expensive avatar items, came from somewhere.
7. Keep the device in a shared room for younger children, and keep voice chat off.
8. Make telling you safe. Children hide these situations because they fear losing the game, or because they have been told they will be in trouble. Saying out loud, in advance, that they will not be punished for telling you is worth more than any setting.

For professionals

The professional briefing covers indicators, evidence and reporting routes in full. Points specific to this subject:

• The off-platform move is the pivot. In nearly every documented case the harm happened on Discord, Snapchat or similar, not in Roblox chat. An investigation that looks only at Roblox will miss most of the evidence. Ask early which other apps were used and under what names.
• Gifts are a trail. Robux and items received leave a record on the child's account, in the transaction and trade history, which identifies the giving account.
• One offender, many accounts. Accounts are free and disposable. Link them through user IDs, shared friends, shared groups and reused Discord identities rather than names.
• Treat symbols as a separate category. Self-harm that forms names, numbers or symbols, or a child being directed to harm themselves or an animal, indicates a coercive network rather than a lone offender, and calls for an urgent, specialist response.
• Verified age is not verified identity. Since January 2026 an account's age band may be recorded as checked. Given documented bypasses and resold accounts, it should not be relied on to establish who was using an account.
• Record the permanent identifiers, not display names, and report quickly. Platforms hold logs for a limited time.

What is still unknown

• How many children are harmed. Arrest counts and platform reports each measure something narrower.
• Whether the rise in reports reflects more abuse or better detection.
• Whether age checks and tiers have reduced contact between adults and children in practice.
• How the pending state cases and the federal litigation will be decided. No court has yet ruled on the central allegations.

Sources

1. Wikipedia, "Child safety on Roblox", with its cited primary reporting (Bloomberg Businessweek, People Make Games, Aftermath, court filings). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_safety_on_Roblox Reference Read in full · Accessed 3 October 2026 · Search the Wayback Machine · Register R1
2. Fortune, coverage of the Hindenburg Research report, 9 October 2024. fortune.com Reporting Search summary only · Accessed 3 October 2026 · Archived copy (10 Sep 2025) · Register R2
3. Video Games Chronicle, "Roblox reported over 13,000 incidents of child exploitation in 2023". videogameschronicle.com Reporting Search summary only · Accessed 3 October 2026 · Archived copy (7 Jun 2026) · Register R3
4. NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, commentary on the Hindenburg report. bhr.stern.nyu.edu Reporting Search summary only · Accessed 3 October 2026 · Search the Wayback Machine · Register R4
5. The Next Web, "Roblox splits its user base into three age-gated tiers as lawsuits mount over child safety". thenextweb.com Reporting Read in full · Accessed 3 October 2026 · Search the Wayback Machine · Register R5
6. Tech Times, "Roblox Agrees to $12M Settlement, Rolls Out New Child Safety, Age Verification Features", 17 April 2026. techtimes.com Reporting Search summary only · Accessed 3 October 2026 · Archived copy (27 Jun 2026) · Register R6
7. BNN Bloomberg, "Roblox will ban kids under 13 from social hangouts", 6 November 2024. bnnbloomberg.ca Reporting Search summary only · Accessed 3 October 2026 · Search the Wayback Machine · Register R7
8. Game World Observer, summary of the Hindenburg report's user-metric claims, 9 October 2024. gameworldobserver.com Reporting Search summary only · Accessed 3 October 2026 · Archived copy (11 Jun 2026) · Register R8
9. Statista, Roblox daily active users worldwide. statista.com Reference Search summary only · Accessed 3 October 2026 · Archived copy (19 May 2026) · Register R9