Lawsuit filed against Roblox online gaming company over lack of oversight for children

Attorney General James Uthmeier has filed a lawsuit against online gaming platform Roblox for “knowingly” facilitating conditions for sexual predators.

The 76-page lawsuit was filed Thursday in the 8th Judicial Circuit Court in Baker County. There’s no one particular victim listed in the lawsuit, but the filing states, “These predators use the Roblox (application) to find, groom, and abuse children. Florida children have been coerced into taking and sending sexual images of themselves. Others have been physically abducted and raped.”

The lawsuit follows several legal maneuvers by Uthmeier this year challenging Roblox’s operations. There was already one civil action, and Uthmeier launched a criminal investigation of the online platform in October.

In a video statement published Thursday, Uthmeier said that the criminal investigation, which included subpoenas, continues to probe Roblox. But he decided to file the civil action regardless.

“We reviewed the information demanded in our subpoena, and what we found is unacceptable,” Uthmeier said. “Roblox aggressively markets to young children. But fails to protect them from sexual predators.”

The lawsuit alleges Roblox violated Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practice Act on five counts. The legal action seeks a court injunction to block Roblox from engaging in the acts alleged and civil penalties up to $10,000 per violation and additional penalties up to $150,000.

A key element of the lawsuit is Uthmeier’s office’s claim that Roblox “attracts vulnerable child users by design.” The court action details investigations by Uthmeier’s office that he claims uncovered intentional efforts to lure children into sexually charged circumstances.

The lawsuit alleges that Uthmeier’s investigators created fraudulent Roblox accounts and used them to assess whether the platform was accessible to minors, including by testing age verification and facial age estimation. The investigators posed as a 7-year-old girl, an 8-year-old boy, a 10-year-old boy, a 15-year-old girl and a 47-year-old male. The lawsuit includes screenshots of the Roblox entry page and instructions for creating a Roblox account. The lawsuit alleged that Roblox lacked safeguards to verify that parental consent was obtained.

“Roblox does nothing to confirm or document that parental permission has been given, no matter how young a child is. Nor does Roblox require a parent to confirm the age that the child provides when creating a Roblox account,” the lawsuit said, adding, “Roblox could do more; it chooses not to.”

Uthemeier stated that, given the lack of oversight of who was creating accounts on the platform, he decided to proceed with legal action.

“Roblox broke the trust of parents, and my office will make sure they answer for it,” Uthmeier said.