OKLAHOMA CITY (KOKH) — Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has filed a lawsuit against Roblox, alleging the massively popular online gaming platform has put profits ahead of child safety and allowed predators to target children.
Roblox says two-thirds of all children ages 9 to 12 in the United States are actively engaged in Roblox gaming, including thousands of children in Oklahoma.
Drummond said Roblox has failed to protect young users despite public assurances to parents.
“Roblox marketed itself as a safe place for children but turned a blind eye as predators targeted and exploited minors on its platform,” Drummond said. “It failed to implement adequate safeguards, failed to protect young users and failed to be honest with parents about the risks. We must ensure Roblox is held accountable and Oklahoma families are protected.”
According to the lawsuit, Roblox has allowed children as young as 5 to create accounts without parental knowledge and exchange messages with strangers. The complaint also alleges Roblox’s account creation system has enabled adults to masquerade as children, using multiple accounts and evading attempts to ban them. The lawsuit says those impersonators include individual predators and organized rings of abusers.
The lawsuit also alleges Roblox prioritized rapid revenue growth and other metrics while disregarding safety measures. Drummond’s complaint cites sources who say Roblox employees felt explicit pressure to avoid changes that could reduce platform engagement, even when those changes would protect children from predators.
“Roblox’s willingness to sacrifice the well-being of children in pursuit of profit is unconscionable and indefensible,” Drummond said.
The lawsuit alleges violations of the Oklahoma Consumer Protection Act and seeks civil penalties and a permanent injunction against the company, among other relief.
Roblox Chief Safety Officer Matt Kaufman sent FOX 25 the following statement:
We share Attorney General Drummond’s commitment to child online safety. With that said, we are disappointed that he has filed a lawsuit that both fundamentally misrepresents how Roblox works and fails to take into account the extensive, industry-leading proactive measures the company is taking to set a new standard in online safety.
Roblox has built a multilayered safety system that includes pioneering safeguards to help protect our users. We do not allow the exchange of images or videos in chat, and we deploy a combination of advanced AI-powered detection, human moderation and rigorous filters designed to prevent the exchange of personal information. Additionally, we do not encrypt communications, which provides more visibility to help keep our community safe.
As part of our ongoing work to strengthen user protections, Roblox recently became the first online gaming platform to require age checks for all users to access chat features, limiting younger users to chatting only with peers by default. Additionally, this June, we will launch new age-based accounts that automatically place our youngest users in a partitioned environment, further aligning content access and parental controls with a user’s age.
When we identify violations of our rules we take swift action and work closely with law enforcement to help hold bad actors accountable. While no system can be perfect, we are constantly strengthening our user protections, and we look forward to working constructively with Attorney General Drummond to help keep kids safe online.
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