Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a sweeping lawsuit against the gaming giant Roblox on Thursday, accusing the company of operating a “digital playground” that functions closer to a “hunting ground” for sexual predators.
The complaint, filed in the Eighth Judicial Circuit Court, alleges that the California-based corporation has deceived parents for years, prioritizing exponential user growth and revenue over the safety of the millions of children who log in daily. The state is seeking an injunction and civil penalties under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (FDUTPA).
According to the filing, Roblox has failed to implement basic safety features—such as age verification—allowing adults to easily pose as minors. The state argues this anonymity, combined with the platform’s social design, has created an ecosystem where predators can groom children, bribe them with the in-game currency “Robux” for explicit photos, and lure them to unmoderated encrypted messaging apps like Discord and Snapchat.
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“Roblox has become the most popular online gaming platform in the world by selling itself as the safest gaming platform in the world,” the complaint reads. “In reality, Roblox is the new hunting ground for sexual predators.”
Explicit Content and “Real-Life Crimes”
The lawsuit paints a grim picture of the content available to children on the platform. State investigators claim that despite Roblox’s assurances of strict moderation, the platform is “replete” with games simulating real-world sex crimes.
The complaint explicitly details the existence of user-created games recreating “notorious Diddy ‘freak-off’ parties” and simulations set on Jeffrey Epstein’s private island. The state alleges these “experiences” were fully accessible to young children. Furthermore, the lawsuit cites the “Pedophile Hellscape Report,” noting that independent investigators created child accounts and were quickly subjected to sexual abuse from other users.
Florida Connections and Retaliation Claims
The Attorney General’s Office highlighted several specific incidents involving Florida children. The complaint lists recent arrests in Flagler, Ocala, and Palm Springs involving adults who allegedly met victims on Roblox before coercing them into sending explicit material or arranging in-person meetings.
In a particularly sharp allegation, the lawsuit accuses Roblox of retaliation against a whistleblower. The complaint details the case of Michael Schlep, a user who reportedly helped identify predators on the platform—leading to arrests in Florida. The state claims that rather than fixing the issue, Roblox issued a cease-and-desist notice and banned Schlep’s accounts, labeling his vigilance as “harmful activity.”
The Business of “Aging Up”
Florida’s legal argument hinges on the idea that these safety failures were a choice, not an accident. The complaint alleges that as Roblox sought to satisfy Wall Street investors, it pursued an “aging up” strategy to attract older users who spend more money.
The state argues that by mixing adult users with children and refusing to implement biometric age verification or require parental consent at signup, Roblox knowingly facilitated an environment ripe for abuse to keep engagement numbers high.
Roblox’s Stance
In a statement to the Tampa Free Press, Roblox said, “This lawsuit fundamentally misrepresents how Roblox works. Roblox is built with safety at its core. We have advanced safeguards that monitor our platform for harmful content and communications. Users cannot send or receive images via chat, eliminating one of the most prevalent opportunities for misuse seen elsewhere online. We are also rolling out additional measures to further limit who users can chat with, going beyond what is required by law and what other platforms do. We take swift action against anyone found to violate our safety rules and work closely with law enforcement to support investigations and hold bad actors accountable.”
The company also firmly pushed back against Uthmeier’s office in October when the state first issued criminal subpoenas.
At the time, a Roblox spokesperson stated that the Attorney General’s claims demonstrated a “lack of understanding” of how the platform works. The company has previously maintained that image sharing is prohibited in chat, that filters block personal information, and that they maintain a “strong record” of working with law enforcement, including the FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
Roblox has also touted recent efforts to implement age-estimation technology and parental controls. However, the lawsuit dismisses these recent changes as “superficial” and “too little, too late,” arguing that they serve only to highlight how unsafe the platform has been for the past decade.
The lawsuit seeks to force Roblox to implement stringent safety measures and verify the ages of its users, alongside financial penalties for alleged violations of Florida consumer protection laws.
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