For the last forty-plus years, videogames have become an increasingly favorable and evolving pastime typically meant for children. Since then, with the implementation and expansion of the internet, video games started to not only appeal to people across the world from the comfort of their own homes, but allow its users to collaborate with one another while playing.
The Roblox corporation is no different. Created in the early-mid 2000s by David Baszucki and Erick Cassel, Roblox has since become one of the most popular gaming sites for users, as it’s been named the fastest growing company in 2015-2016. However, within the last few years, a social and legal issue has come to the surface regarding the safety procedures of the corporation and its user base that is causing people, primarily parents, to question the intentions of the company and its commitment to keeping its users safe.
The conversation regarding ethics and safety amongst internet sites is not new. With the expansion of the internet, along with the anonymity of those who use it, new ways for children to be victimized by predators have come about. Roblox has recently been ousted for this issue. While current Roblox CEO Baszucki has claimed that Roblox has always been a safe place, particularly for its young users, a recent court document filed in Texas has compiled years of evidence entailing issues of child pornography.
The argument over the safety procedures, or lack thereof, of Roblox has turned into a battle between concerned parents and the corporation’s leaders, but substantive evidence via court documents and personal experience seem to support one side over the other.
Due to Roblox’s ability for users to collaborate with one another via messaging, currency, and microgames that exist within the site, issues of human trafficking and sexual exploitation amongst minors have ensued. But despite the countless alarming cases of child endangerment, Baszucki has maintained the child-friendliness of the platform. In a 2025 interview in the New “York Times”’ “Hard Fork” podcast, he claimed: “Roblox is an amazing platform right now for your kid.”
It is worth mentioning that Roblox has implemented safeguards to address the mounting child safety concerns on the platform. In January 2026, Roblox overhauled their chat feature, introducing much stricter regulations. Now, all users who want to participate in the in-game chat function must undergo an age estimation check through a third-party AI technology called Persona. They are then assigned an age cohort that limits who they can chat with.
However, several cases have been reported of users bypassing the technology and being sorted into inaccurate age groups, whether inadvertently or through intentional manipulation of the system. Violet Spencer, a Howard University sophomore who frequently plays Roblox, is one of many users who, to no fault of their own, have slipped through the cracks of Roblox’s age verification system.
“The two options were either to show my ID or take a picture of my face,” Spencer explained. “I decided not to give them my ID because I don’t want anyone having my information like that if it’s unnecessary, so I opted in to the facial scanner. I just turned 20, but they said that I was 13 years old. And it’s just shocking… The fact that they mis-aged me by seven years and they’re using AI to do it, it causes so much room for risk.”
As a member of Gen Z, Spencer, along with many other students, grew up in an era of very limited access to social media and internet usage. Years before Roblox came to the forefront, children of and beyond the digital era often had their fond memories of early internet usage tainted by the harsh reality that it has become a loophole for child endangerment. It is this that leads Spencer to reflect on what she would do as a parent.
“I wouldn’t let my kids play Roblox until they were 16. It just causes so much room for harm. What if a 30-year-old tested out like me, and [Roblox] is like, ‘Yeah, you can talk with 13-year-olds?’” Spencer continued. “As a company, you should be wanting to make the world a better place. It’s so heartbreaking.”
The critical question beneath the claim that Roblox is safe for children is this one: who is responsible for children’s online safety? Is it the platform or the parents who bear this heavy mantle? A game developer for Roblox said: “When playing Roblox, children need to be monitored 24/7. And if that’s not possible, then they shouldn’t be playing Roblox.” Additionally, during the aforementioned Hard Fork episode, CEO Baszucki argued that “a parent is the ultimate arbiter of responsibility.”
In an ideal world, parents could monitor every interaction their child has in the Roblox universe. But we do not live in an ideal world. Roblox stakeholders have consistently argued that the safety of child users in their virtual universe hinges on continuous surveillance by their parents.
But what about children with unrestricted internet access? What about children who manage to bypass parental controls? What about children whose parents simply aren’t available to monitor them every minute they spend on the game? Does Roblox legitimately expect parents to sit and watch their child’s every move and interaction?
The underlying argument in Roblox’s child safety theory is an ethically unsound one: that children with absent, occupied, or otherwise unavailable parents deserve to be exposed to potential harm. Children’s developing brains cannot fully comprehend the risks of interacting with strangers online, and therefore cannot provide informed consent.
So, is Roblox safe for children? While the platform has recently upgraded its safety measures, its young users remain exposed to serious danger, given its far-from-foolproof age verification system, inconsistent moderation, and the ongoing risk of predators enticing their victims to secondary platforms. Roblox leaders have said it themselves: the site is only safe for children when they are closely and consistently monitored by a guardian–and unfortunately, this level of oversight is unrealistic.
Roblox’s moral framework is an individualistic, neoliberal, libertarian one that is worthy of critique. It has turned the public issue of child safety into one of private parental oversight. The platform represents just one case study in a national, macro-level legal and ethical debate.
Writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin once wrote: “The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe; and I am beginning to suspect that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality.”
In other words, all adults are responsible for all children–a maxim that Roblox has consistently failed to model as a platform. While the individual opinions of the pros and cons of Roblox are irrelevant and the issue of child exploitation exists far outside of Roblox, this doesn’t take away from its impact. The evidence above doesn’t replace the role of law, but it is clear that on some level, Roblox is at the very least complicit in the danger it has caused its young users.
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