Louisiana Sues Roblox for Allegedly Endangering Children

The Roblox website. (Gabby Jones/Bloomberg)

Louisiana is suing Roblox for what it alleges is widespread child abuse and sexual exploitation, saying the gaming platform has allowed predators to thrive online through “willful disregard and deceptive practices.”

Roblox didn’t immediately respond to a voice mail and an email requesting comment on the lawsuit, filed Thursday in Livingston Parish’s 21st Judicial District Court.

“We dedicate vast resources to supporting a safe infrastructure including advanced technology and 24/7 human moderation, to detect and prevent inappropriate content and behavior,” a Roblox spokesperson said Friday afternoon. “While no system is perfect, Roblox has implemented rigorous safeguards.”

The company’s stock was down 6.3% on Friday.

“Roblox is overrun with harmful content and child predators because it prioritizes user growth, revenue, and profits over child safety,” state Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a statement accompanying the lawsuit.

The state is asking the court to permanently keep Roblox from “representing that Roblox has adequate safety features,” Murrill said.

The company, according to the lawsuit, doesn’t provide protections such as required age verification.

Currently, age verification is required by some states for social media and pornography websites.

Roblox has optional age verification to activate certain features like group voice chat, according to company support documents.

Roblox has millions of games and so-called experiences that are all made by users. The gaming platform also acts as a social platform where users can make and hangout with friends in virtual worlds. Users text or voice chat.

The app saw an average of 112 million users a day in the past quarter, who spent a total of 27 billion hours on the platform. The majority of users are under 18.

Roblox has increased its spending on safety. In the past quarter, about 22% of Roblox’s operating expenses were for “Infrastructure and Trust & Safety,” up 18% on the year.

In July, Roblox rolled out a new suite of safety features. And in early August, Roblox revealed Roblox Sentinel, an AI system that monitors communications and acts as an early warning system.

From late 2024 to August, Sentinel aided in 1,200 Roblox submissions to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Roblox made the software open source, so other companies can use the tool.

Out of the roughly 100 million daily Roblox users, the lawsuit cites 3,334 who “openly traded child pornography and solicited sexual acts from minors.”

“Safety has always been foundational to everything we do at Roblox,” said Matt Kaufman, chief safety officer, in a July statement. “Our goal is to lead the world in safety and civility for online gaming.”

Write to Adam Levine at adam.levine@barrons.com