Lack of Safety Features Led to Roblox Child Exploitation, Lawsuit Claims

Lawsuit alleges a stranger used Roblox chat, pretended to be another child and tried to convince an 8-year-old girl to run away from home to pursue an intimate relationship with him.

An Oregon teen has filed a lawsuit against the developers of Roblox, alleging that the gaming app’s design helped the company profit by setting up children to be prey for online sexual predators.

The complaint (PDF) was brought in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on July 1, by a woman identified only as AW-0014. Courts frequently allow anonymity in situations involving sexual abuse. The case names Roblox Corporation as the sole defendant.

The now-18-year-old says she was only 8 when a sexual predator began targeting her online, allegedly posing as another minor, exchanging explicit messages with her and trying to convince her to run away with him. She argues that Roblox Corporation could have prevented the abuse, or reduced the risk of it occurring, by using basic age-verification and child-safety restrictions, and that the company’s failures left her with severe psychological trauma that may affect her for the rest of her life.

Roblox Child Sexual Exploitation Concerns

The Roblox gaming app and platform was launched in 2006 and has grown to roughly 150 million daily active users worldwide, mostly consisting of children and teens. It allows users to create their own games, play games designed by others and visit entire virtual worlds.

However, Roblox also includes a chat system that allows players to communicate and gives creators the ability to take control of others’ avatars in certain circumstances. For years, critics have warned that these features and the app’s lack of age verification, account authentication procedures, content-monitoring tools and other child safety features were a problem that could put children in the sights of sexual predators.

Over the last year, a growing number of Roblox child exploitation lawsuits have been filed by parents, or former child players, who say children were stalked, groomed, coerced into sending explicit sexual material and, in some cases, sexually assaulted, kidnapped or trafficked. In many instances, the children report having been approached by an adult who was able to pretend to be another child due to the lack of safety features.

Facing public outrage, last year Roblox Corporation began deploying facial recognition software it says will help identify the age of users and prevent adults from contacting minors without their parents’ permission. However, critics argue that the changes come too late and fall short of what is needed.

Roblox Sexual Predator Allegations

According to the lawsuit, AW-0014 began using Roblox in 2016, and almost immediately was targeted by an adult sexual predator while playing a “dress-up style” game. Pretending to be a child of about the plaintiff’s own age, he gained her trust and began grooming her for a potential relationship.

“Over time, the predator communicated regularly with Plaintiff through Roblox. During this period, the predator asked Plaintiff what city she lived in and what school she attended, information which Plaintiff provided. The predator escalated the relationship by telling Plaintiff that they were in a romantic relationship, that he loved her, and that he wanted to be with her.”

– AW-0014 v. Roblox Corporation

When her mother discovered the messages, the man was attempting to convince the 8-year-old child to run away with him and shower together, in addition to other highly inappropriate communications. Plaintiff’s mother informed the police, but after a long investigation they determined that the man could not be identified and likely lived outside of the United States.

The lawsuit indicates the plaintiff suffered “profound harm” from being groomed by a sexual predator, leaving her with significant emotional and psychological injuries such as depression, anxiety and difficulty with relationships. She also has a fear of being alone.

The filing presents claims of fraudulent concealment and misrepresentation, negligent misrepresentation, negligence, strict liability and negligent failure to warn, negligence- unreasonable design, negligent undertaking and design defect. It seeks both compensatory and punitive damages.

Roblox Child Exploitation Lawsuits

The complaint will be consolidated with more than 160 similar Roblox child exploitation lawsuits in the Northern District of California, before U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg, who is leading the litigation through coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

As the litigation progresses, Judge Seeborg is expected to establish a bellwether process where the parties will select a group of cases most representative of the litigation as a whole. These would then be prepared for early test trials, giving the parties an opportunity to see how juries will react to evidence and testimony that would be employed throughout the litigation.

Additionally, the Court appointed a special master to oversee preliminary settlement negotiations earlier this year. If successful, a global settlement could eliminate the need for trials, saving all parties and the court time and expense.

However, if the bellwether trials end with no settlement agreement or other resolution, Judge Seeborg would likely begin remanding cases back to their originating District Court for individual trial dates.

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