“Roblox is ‘hunting ground for child sex predators,’ new lawsuit claims”, 22 February 2025

A new lawsuit filed in San Mateo County, California, court claims Roblox, one of the most popular online gaming platforms for children in the world, “provides a hunting ground for child sex predators.”

The lawsuit was filed by law firm Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy earlier this month on behalf of a 13-year-old boy who was an “avid user of Roblox and Discord.” Adults can use Roblox and Discord to contact minors through direct messages while pretending to be children, the suit claims…

Attorneys said the boy’s parents “learned the truth only after it was too late. In 2024, they discovered that Roblox and Discord had enabled a child predator to identify, groom, and coerce (the boy) into sending sexually explicit images and videos of himself.”

Investigators later identified the adult as 27-year-old Sebastian Romero...

Discord, headquartered in San Francisco, was also slapped by the lawsuit. Discord is an app for gamers looking to communicate while playing video games...

“Roblox, in effect, serves as an initial access point to children for predators. Once on another app, like Discord, predators escalate their exploitation by soliciting explicit material…

Roblox made updates to improve its parental control features late last year. The company wrote, “We are always working to make chat incredibly safe.”...

Roblox said its approach to online safety is systematic, thoughtful, and guided by feedback from parents, youth, and experts…