A Los Angeles County mother said her daughter met a sexual predator on the popular children’s gaming platform Roblox, claiming the company is not doing enough to protect vulnerable players who are too young to understand the dangers of interacting with strangers.
The mother, who was named Mary Doe in a lawsuit filed against Roblox and Discord, said the gaming platform and the online chat site for minors seemed innocent, never imagining that her family would deal with a nightmare.
“You shouldn’t have to rebuild your life at 13 years old,” Mary Doe said about her daughter.
NBC Los Angeles exclusively spoke with the mother without revealing her identity or voice as she wished to protect her daughter’s privacy. But she admitted that after what she said has happened, getting back to a sense of normalcy won’t be easy.
“I still have these photos that are floating around of her, these videos of her with her young body,” the mother explained. “That’s not fair to her. She didn’t know what she was doing.”
Roblox is designed for children and allows users as young as age 5 to join, while Discord has a minimum age requirement of 13.
Mary Doe’s complaint said Roblox wasn’t safe for her daughter.
“It should not be marketed to children at all if they can’t safeguard the children. Then it should not be marketed to them,” she said.
Mary Doe said she didn’t initially have any concerns when her then-12-year-old daughter signed up for Roblox in 2024. Her two older siblings had used the platform without any concerns.
But she said the 12-year-old’s behavior changed: she failed 7th grade, and the mom discovered the girl had befriended a person, who claimed to be a 15-year-old girl, on Roblox.
“She had an apartment. She was trying to get my daughter to Fullertson, so she was not 15. She was an adult,” Mary Doe said. “The girl asked her to come over to Discord to start these chatrooms to start.”
The lawsuit alleges explicit messages and images, including those of Mary Doe’s daughter, were shared on Discord.
Another Southern California family is suing Roblox, claiming their child met a man on Roblox, who then lured and sexually assaulted the child.
“Roblox advertises itself as not only safe but an educational platform for children. And the overwhelming number of users on Roblox are minors,” Steven Vanderporten, a Chicago attorney who represents the Riverside family.
The man, who assaulted the Riverside child, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. In this case, the family is only using Roblox, not Discord.
“It’s become a haven for predators who know that they can access and chat with children as young as five by signing up and accessing these game experiences,” Vanderporten said.
Roblox told NBC Los Angeles that it typically doesn’t comment on the specifics of ongoing litigation, but provided the following statement:
“We are deeply troubled by any incident that endangers any user. Roblox aims to build a platform that sets the bar for safety online, and we prioritize the safety of our community. This is why our policies are purposely stricter than those found on many other platforms. We limit chat for younger users, don’t allow user-to-user image sharing, and have filters designed to block the sharing of personal information. We also understand that no system is perfect and that is why we are constantly working to further improve our safety tools and platform restrictions to ensure parents can trust us to help keep their children safe online, launching 145 new initiatives this year alone.
We also understand this is an industry-wide issue and we are working to develop industry-wide standards and solutions. For instance, Roblox is implementing an industry-leading policy to help prevent older users from communicating with children by requiring a sophisticated facial age estimation process for all Roblox users who access our communications features. We partner with law enforcement and leading child safety and mental health organizations worldwide to combat the sexual exploitation of children and are a founding member of the Tech Coalition’s Lantern project and the nonprofit Robust Open Online Safety Tools (ROOST).”
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