Los Angeles County filed a civil lawsuit against Roblox, alleging that the platform markets itself as a gaming experience for children but has created a “largely unsupervised online world” that allows adults to mingle with minors with very little oversight.
The lawsuit says that Roblox’s architecture makes it easy for adults to masquerade as children in order to target them.
“Beneath the bright animation and cheerful branding lies an environment in which child predators can readily locate, contact, and interact with minors through Roblox-enabled features and defaults, and where age-inappropriate sexual content and sexually themed interactions and experiences can be assessed and disseminated through Roblox’s functionality and tools, leaving minors to navigate dangers they do not and cannot understand,” the lawsuit says.
The suit was filed on Thursday and asks that Roblox be ordered to pay a civil penalty of up to $2,500 for each violation of the Unfair Competition and False Advertising laws. It also asks that Roblox cover the county’s legal fees.
Roblox said in a statement that it disputes the county’s claims “and will defend against it vigorously.”
“Roblox is built with safety at its core, and we continue to evolve and strengthen our protections every day,” a company spokesperson said. “We have advanced safeguards that monitor our platform for harmful content and communications, and users cannot send or receive images via chat, avoiding one of the most prevalent opportunities for misuse seen elsewhere online.”
The company said safety remains a top priority and takes “swift action against anyone found to violate our safety rules.”
The lawsuit, however, accuses Roblox of failing to implement safety measures, including age verification, default communications restrictions and effective reporting mechanisms.
“These fixes are obvious, easy, and long overdue,” it says.
The county said in its suit that it has had to “expend, divert and increase resources to address rising rates of child sexual exploitation, trafficking, abuse and mental health trauma.”
“By taking actions that increase the costs of law enforcement, child protective services, victim services, mental health counseling, and other public services, Roblox has diverted taxpayer dollars away from other critical public programs and services,” the suit alleges.
Roblox said in its statement that as of January, it requires all users to undergo a facial age check to use the chat feature, and that chat users are placed into age groups.
Parents are given control over whether their child can access the chat feature, can block specific users and games, and can set screen time limits. The company also said it does not allow users to send images or videos via chat.
“There is no finish line when it comes to protecting kids, and while no system can be perfect, our commitment to safety never ends,” Roblox said.
Since its launch in 2006, Roblox has grown to become a massive global success. It has 144.5 million daily active users with over 35 billion engagement hours, its website states.
According to its most recent shareholder letter for Quarter 4, revenue grew 36% year-over-year to $4.9 billion and generated $1.8. billion in operating cash flow in fiscal 2025.
This was due to the addition of about 60 million daily active users from Quarter 4 of 2024 to Quarter 4 of 2025, the letter says.
Over the years, the gaming platform has been at the center of several lawsuits, including one filed last year where a California woman alleged that her teenage son was groomed and coerced to send explicit images on Roblox and Discord. The suit was filed after the boy took his own life in April 2024.
Attorneys for the mother said the boy was targeted by “an adult sex predator” who posed as a child on Roblox. The lawsuit alleged that the conversation between the boy and the man escalated to include “sexual topics and explicit exchanges.” The man eventually encouraged the boy to move the conversation to Discord, demanded that the boy share explicit videos and images, and then threatened to post them, the lawsuit alleged.
Both companies said at the time that it does not comment on legal matters. The case is still pending.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill also sued the platform last year, alleging that it was “the perfect place for pedophiles” due to its failure to implement strong safety protocols. Roblox denied her claims and said it was committed to working with the prosecutor’s office to keep children safe.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
