Roblox serves as ‘hunting ground’ for child predators: lawsuit

Roblox failed to implement safety standards that would’ve protected an Oklahoma teenager who an adult sexually exploited after meeting through the popular gaming platform, a new lawsuit alleges, as the company faces mounting legal pressure. 

The teenager’s mother is suing the platform, with the Dolman Law Group filing a lawsuit last Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The lawsuit is one of several abuse-related lawsuits that have been filed against Roblox in recent years.

The boy, who is one of the plaintiffs, is identified as “John Doe J.H” in the suit, while Roblox is named as the defendant. 

The complaint asserts that Roblox has served as a “hunting ground” for child-sex predators for years, claiming it gives them “easy access” to children and fails to screen users properly. 

“As a direct result of Defendant’s reckless disregard for child safety, Plaintiff has suffered devastating and life-altering psychological trauma,” the lawsuit states.” His life will never be the same.” 

“When Plaintiff first started playing on Roblox, Plaintiff’s mother believed that Roblox was safe for children because it was designed and marketed for kids,” the complaint reads, noting that Roblox fueled this perception by advertising the supposed “safety and security of the app.” 

“Unbeknownst to Plaintiff’s mother at the time, this was nothing more than a false façade of safety,” the legal document states. 

As the complaint alleges, the teenager was an “avid Roblox user” before a predator targeted him through the application in 2023. The predator lied and said that he was the same age as the plaintiff, and he used “well-documented grooming tactics” to establish a relationship with the teen.

“After cultivating Plaintiff’s trust on Defendant’s dangerous app, the predators sent Plaintiff graphic messages and sent him sexually explicit images of themselves,” the complaint states. “Exploiting the trust he had been allowed to build through Defendant’s defective app, the predator coerced Plaintiff to send sexually explicit images of himself — including images of his genitals.”

The lawsuit requests that the gaming platform compensate the plaintiff for the physical pain and suffering, mental anguish, medical expenses and other injuries allegedly caused by the teen’s use of Roblox’s products.

“We are deeply troubled by any incident that endangers our users. While we cannot comment on claims raised in litigation, protecting children is a top priority, which is why our policies are purposely stricter than those found on many other platforms,” a Roblox spokesperson told The Christian Post. 

In 2025 alone, Roblox launched 145 new safety initiatives, the representative speaking on the company’s behalf told CP.

“We encourage anyone to report content or behavior that may violate our Community Standards using our Report Abuse feature,” the Roblox spokesperson said. “We also partner with law enforcement and leading child safety and mental health organizations worldwide to combat the sexual exploitation of children, such as the Tech Coalition’s Lantern project and Robust Open Online Safety Tools or ROOST.”

Earlier this month, Roblox announced that it would require users to complete an age check through Facial Age Estimation or ID verification before they can chat with other users within a similar age group. The gaming platform will roll out the requirement in select markets in December before expanding it globally in early January, according to the announcement. 

“This innovation enables age-based chat and limits communication between minors and adults,” the Roblox spokesperson told CP. “We also limit chat for younger users, don’t allow the sharing of external images, and have filters designed to block the sharing of personal information.”

The spokesperson also said that Roblox uses advanced technology and 24/7 human moderation to help detect and prevent inappropriate content and behavior. 

“We understand that no system is perfect, which is why we are constantly working to improve our safety tools and platform restrictions,” the spokesperson stated. 

Tim Nester, vice president of communications at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, criticized Roblox’s “abysmal track record” on children’s safety, which he believes led to the current lawsuit and over 30 others against the platform. 

“There is no doubt that Roblox’s chat feature has enabled predators to groom children for sexual abuse,” Nester told CP. “Minors can also access sexually explicit ‘experiences,’ and there has been minimal moderation and easy workarounds for safety controls. Children can also easily exchange Robux and other in-game currencies, which gives predators another way to persuade and extort minors.”

“Children should not be prey on a gaming platform marketed to kids,” Nester added. “Congress must pass the Kids Online Safety Act so that gaming and tech platforms design their platforms with safety in mind before harm happens.”

The Oklahoma teen is not the first time a predator has used Roblox to target children. 

An 11-year-old girl in New Jersey was kidnapped by a man she met through Roblox, WABC reported in 2023. The suspect, 27-year-old Darius Matylewich, met up with the girl and transported her 135 miles to Bear, Delaware, without her parents’ knowledge. 

In another case, a male predator who used platforms like Roblox sexually groomed a 13-year-old Utah boy, NBC News reported in April 2023. The predator eventually kidnapped and sexually assaulted the child before the authorities intervened and brought the boy home.