Roblox Hit With Multimillion-Dollar Suit By Los Angeles, for Creating Largely Unsupervised Online World That Enables Predatory Pedophiles and Give Them Powerful Tools to Prey on Kids

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Beep@lemmus.org⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://lacounty.gov/2026/02/19/la-county-sues-roblox-for-unfair-and-deceptive-business-practices-that-endanger-and-exploit-children/

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Eternal192@anarchist.nexus ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
They protect pedophiles, one youtuber was getting in touch with them and would then forward their information to the police and Roblox banned him, so fuck Roblox.

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- Prove_your_argument@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Can’t interfere with that revenue growth
  
  Shareholders need to be held accountable for the unethical, immoral and illegal activities of their owned businesses. Until there is a financial incentive for business to be run ethically, morally and legally for the shareholders, nothing will ever change. It is perhaps the biggest problem with capitalism today.
  
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  - kiterios@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Fiduciary duty is just white-collar-washed sociopathy.
    
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- spookedintownsville@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Free schlep
  
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- ICastFist@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Who do you think spends money on roblox? Kids? Fuck no, it’s the pedos and their totally “E for everyone” ~~games~~ experiences and cosmetics
  
  Image
  
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SalamenceFury@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
As much as I think this is all terrible and that Roblox SHOULD answer for some of this shit, the fact of the matter is, PARENTS ARE NOT TEACHING KIDS HOW TO BE SAFE IN THE INTERNET. They just throw a fucking tablet or phone or console or PC screen in front of their eyes and refuse to do ANYTHING resembling parenting, and when their kid inevitably gets groomed they blame the platform and ask for daddy government to do their parenting for them.

Set parental controls, teach kids to not trust strangers and give them basic internet safety tips, and none of this shit will ever happen.

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- Ancalagon@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Facts. Feels good to subsidize parents and have their shitty kids be the reasons to take my rights.
  
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  - zarkanian@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Which rights?
    
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- lightnsfw@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Social media has muddied the water since I was a kid but I was raw dogging the Internet mostly unsupervised since I was in 5th grade and ran into all sorts of shit. Knowing not to give up any personal information about myself was all I really needed to feel safe. It was never something I even considered doing. I still don’t have any social media with my identity other than a very outdated and minimal LinkedIn. Not sure how a kid could take that advice seriously from their parents who’ve been blasting anything and everything about them all over social media since they were born though.
  
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- curbstickle@anarchist.nexus ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  Set parental controls
  
  This is what they are suing about.
  
  Don’t sign away the rights of other adults
  
  What rights do you think are being “signed away” in this lawsuit about Roblox not providing functional parental controls and moderation?
  
  I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what is actually happening here.
  
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  - SalamenceFury@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Because those parents are pushing for age verification stuff, that has already been confirmed by hackers to be sent straight to the DOJ and ICE to make a database and link people’s internet profiles to their real names.
    
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  - lightnsfw@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Probably talking about invasive shit like what discord just did.
    
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- morto@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  PARENTS ARE NOT TEACHING KIDS
  
  Unfortunately, it always has been like this for everything
  
  [Sad astronaut gun meme]
  
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- FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Parents’ refusal to parent is why regulation is essential.
  
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  - SalamenceFury@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    You’re not allowed to take someone else’s rights because someone else is a fucking irresponsible idiot. That’s not how this works.
    
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- Dozzi92@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Yeah, agree with everything you said. I let my kids play Roblox. I play with them sometimes, been playing some silly Shawarma game, it freaks them out.
  
  So far, the biggest thing we talk about is this desire of every game to enter your wallet, and I tell them that a game shouldn’t be asking you for money, and now they both get annoyed at games that ask for money. I like to think I’ve created a safe environment for them to play in, and when the environment becomes something else, they ask me about it.
  
  So mainly right now the worst that happens is the game is bullshit and they get mad, and I say hey, this game is bullshit (in more PG language), and we move on.
  
  I firmly believe that prohibition just leads to curiosity. I think it’s impossible to insulate them from shit these days, so I’ll be part of their exposure, and hopefully I can help them learn.
  
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- zarkanian@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  at least on Discord is literally being used to profile people criticizing the Trump administration and ICE.
  
  Evidence?
  
  teach kids to not trust strangers
  
  That’s unrealistic. Teach kids about predators, and teach them about consent and bodily autonomy.
  
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W3dd1e@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Most games are games with a chat feature.

ROBLOX IS A CHATROOM WITH A GAMES FEATURE.

It’s a chatroom where 60% of the user base is under the age of 16 and 40% is under 12.

Grooming happens on Roblox. Predators move that conversation to places Discord which is where the crimes happen.

I am an adult who helped a kid that was the victim of online predators.

When talking to your kids about online safety, come up with a plan just like you might for a fire. Make sure they know what to do when something makes them uncomfortable and make sure you identify a 3rd party adult that you trust and your kid feels safe talking to, maybe a close family friend or an aunt/uncle.

That last part is how I got involved. I don’t have my own kids, but I knew a kid that felt more comfortable talking to me about that stuff than to his parents.
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- fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  That last part is how I got involved. I don’t have my own kids, but I knew a kid that felt more comfortable talking to me about that stuff than to his parents.
  
  doing this is probably an effective safety feature for any community to have. if you’re afraid your parents will freak out and ban you from electronics forever you won’t go to them for help. and not all parents are good parents.
  
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- vithigar@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Likewise I’m a “safe third party adult” for my niece but the prospect of ever actually needing to act in that capacity is terrifying.
  
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  - W3dd1e@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Hopefully it doesn’t come up, but I’m so glad to know her family has a plan in place to keep her safe.
    
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Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
OK, and Discord, Facebook, etc? Or do they just lobby better?

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- Taldan@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  The difference is Discord and Facebook don’t allow users under 13. Roblox does
  
  About the only internet consumer protections that exist in the US are for under-13
  
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UnspecificGravity@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Roblox literally monetized unsupervised access to children as a premium feature.

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- ICastFist@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  “What if we took Club Penguin but made it easy for pedos to communicate with children?” - David Baszucki, probably
  
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o_O@lemmy.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
While I do believe Roblox has been doing a terrible job handling reports of predators on it’s platform and the fact that they would rather silence reporters than dealing with the reports is completely abhorrent and inexcusable. I do believe that the responsibility isn’t entirely on them.

Roblox isn’t a daycare. It isn’t a school. It isn’t marketed to have any responsible adults online per number of players.

Honestly, what is the solution that this lawsuit aims to enforce? Paid moderators with complete criminal background checks to be responsible for 10 underage players each? Who’s going to pay for this?

All that said would I allow my children to play Roblox unsupervised? No. Which is a shame as many of the available games are fantastic and my friends children really enjoy playing them. That said supervison can literally be myself glancing over every now and then to see what type of game they are playing and if they are interacting with anyone, really low tier, low effort parenting skills if you know what to look out for.

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- Passerby6497@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  Roblox isn’t a daycare. It isn’t a school. It isn’t marketed to have any responsible adults online per number of players.
  
  But it’s a platform marketed towards children, takes a cut of the shovelware that other kids make, and didn’t bother policing their platform seriously until recently. The fact that it’s a kids game that’s marketed to kids and they go after people reporting on the abuses that they let run rampant on their platform is just mental to me. I really hope Roblox gets taken to the cleaners for how they actively have fucked around and let their platform get to where it is.
  
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RobotToaster@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Have parents tried parenting their kids instead of expecting everyone else to do it for them?

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- yabbadabaddon@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  As someone without kid, this is too easy of a defense. And if you truly think about it for more than 5 minutes, or watch any documentary on how pedophiles operate, you’d realize.
  
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  - Passerby6497@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    That would require them to actually think at all, it makes much more sense to expect the parent to monitor the child’s activity constantly and never let them do anything on the Internet unsupervised. They will also then complain years later about helicopter parents not giving them any freedom
    
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  - Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I have a kid who thinks roblox… I’m sorry, who knows roblox is slop because I taught him about it and he’s seen poor behavior from friends from playing it.
    
    It should be a combo of both individual patenting and regulations. Ideally
    
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- some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  You’re setting up a false dichotomy, don’t you think?
  
  Never let your kids play age-appropriate online games, which Roblox ostensibly falls under – risk forming lifelong resentment as kids forfeit social capital upon exclusion from peers
  
  Let the kids play, but insert yourself into every facet of that experience for the entire time – first of all, who has time for that? This course also risks heavy resentment and embarrassment
  
  Am I missing another option? As far as I know, the parents vetted the game and thought they were all being reasonable about exposure, but the kids were still harmed.
  
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  - Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    My son doesn’t play roblox, isn’t allowed to play roblox, and doesn’t want to play roblox. I got weird vibes from it when he was small and I looked into, and just didn’t let him. He played Mario and stuff like that, usually as a family.
    
    A decade later, My son has friends. He has at 12, no resentment for not playing roblox, bro dog doesn’t even want a phone that badly yet. Its, cool and I’m probably lucky.
    
    Why do kids have to play roblox to socialize? Why will there be resentment? He resented the neighborhood boy the day he asked him to come over and play outside with him, and the boy said he’d rather play on his computer. My son was upset with the friend, not me. He always preferrs real life play to games online. He wasn’t mad at me for it, he was sad his friend would rather sit alone in his house (parents weren’t home) than come play in our yard.
    
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  - MeatPilot@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    I think this sums it up. Regardless of your opinion as a parent you have to trust and respect your children. This is multipled by how many “other kids” get to do a thing.
    
    You can’t lock them away. Unfortunately this has become the current generations social platform and entertainment. If you don’t have it, you’re a weird kid.
    
    There is this razor edge of control and freedom you have to dance as a parent all the time, not just with Roblox.
    
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ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I think there is a case to be made that platforms need to employ a certain ratio of background-checked moderators if the users are potentially vulnerable.

This is the law irl in classrooms etc. So what if your platform is “too large”, that’s your lookout. And it’s why we don’t fill stadiums full of unsupervised children.

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- rushmonke@ttrpg.network ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  And it’s why we don’t fill stadiums full of unsupervised children.
  
  Bad analogy.
  
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  - ParadoxSeahorse@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    If you’ve ever been to a teen focused artist’s concert as an accompanying adult, it’s pretty fucking close
    
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errer@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

multimillion dollar

They had a gross profit last year of 3.8 billion. They don’t give a shit about this.

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abbadon420@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
My kids can play roblox, but they can’t use chat. They’re also very limited in their social media priviliges. It’s all cancerous and predatory. It’s a shame society has decided that this is the new standard of communication, so I can’t ban it completely.

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- Beep@lemmus.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  I can’t ban it completely.
  
  You can, you just don’t want to.
  
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  - Bassman27@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Modern day parenting for you. Why parent your own kids when you can get the government to ban things for everyone because you don’t want to upset your own kids.
    
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  - U7826391786239@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    when i was a kid, it was normal for parents to say “get out of my sight” and we would just go outside and meet up with our friends. we knew it was time to go home when the street lights turned on. but then there were the kids whose parents wouldn’t let them go out to play with their friends. so they had no friends.
    
    yea, you can force your kids into a bubble where they can’t even talk to their peers, sure. that’s a great way to have kids who never call you when they grow up
    
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  - Stern@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    They can, they just remember what they did when their parents banned something when they were a kid.
    
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- mrnobody@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  They can use chat, trust me. Found my kid was talking to someone in one game because the characters walk around with signs in their hands that they update what they say. Concerning to say the least. My wife is blind to it, says there’s little harm in playing with other kids and claims to supervise and she doesn’t see any predators. “I’m paranoid” and a "conspiracy theorist ". I said for the conspiracy, it’s not a theory when there’s proof… If it were up to me, I’d fully block YT and RB across the full network.
  
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Formfiller@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
The parasite predator class

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Sxan@piefed.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I want stats. I mean, even if it’s only one predator and means saving even only one kid, you could still argue in favor of protections; but stuff like þis is always presented as if it’s an epidemic, and measures should be proportional to þhe problem.

How frequent is abuse? How many Roblox-playing kids are abused every year? I honestly have no idea, but am suspicious of movements which þrow a bunch of stats around

As of late October 2025, the company has reported over 151 million daily active users, and over 380 million monthly users, and it is one of the largest children’s gaming platforms in the world. Over 40 percent of users are reported to be under the age of 13, and according to the company’s own surveys, nearly 75 percent of all children within the U.S. between the ages 9 to 12 play Roblox regularly.

but conspicuously omit any stat about how much abuse is happening. It smacks of fear-mongering.

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- MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Not using actual letters is dumb.
  
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  - zarkanian@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    It’s an actual letter. They just aren’t using it correctly.
    
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FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
This and the lawsuits against Meta, TikTok, and others are inevitable.

In the absence of essential government regulation, even in the face of significant adverse consequences for young people and their welfare, civil lawsuits will have to be enough to force these shitty companies to act appropriately.

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SlippiHUD@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
This lawsuit makes me feel extremely validated in my fight with my ex about not letting our kid play roblox unsupervised. Same with letting them use tiktok/youtube.

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