There are any number of phrases that you probably don’t want in close headline proximity to your online video game platform aimed at children, but “breeding ground for predators” has got to be somewhere close to the worst. (Although, more on that in a second.) Nevertheless, that’s the brush that online video game platform Roblox is once again getting painted with today, as Los Angeles county has become the latest governmental body to sue the Roblox Corporation over what it calls the company’s failures “to implement effective moderation or age verification systems, despite repeated public assurances that its platform is safe for kids.”
Roblox’s response to this latest suit—which joins several others from attorney generals in South Carolina, Iowa, and more—has been to say, basically, “Hey, we fixed that stuff.” The platform implemented more age verification rules last year in apparent anticipation of this new tide of lawsuits, claiming that its tools block kids on the platform from having unfiltered text chat or voice chat with adults they don’t know. (The age verification runs off of either sending photos of government ID to the company or sending a video to its AI age verification technology; its efficacy is pretty heavily debated online, but it is something Roblox can point to when people claim they’re doing nothing about predators inhabiting their platforms.) In the company’s own words (per Variety), it intends to “strongly dispute the claims in this lawsuit and will defend against it vigorously,” claiming that while “there is no finish line when it comes to protecting kids,” the company works with law enforcement to protect its users and “hold bad actors accountable.”
Even ignoring the international situation—where it’s been banned in several countries, for both these reasons, and because popular Roblox games often end up resembling Baby’s First Casino—Roblox has faced a lot of legal problems in the United States in the years since lawmakers and other politicians figured out that it was a thing that they had to pay attention to. In that regards, the L.A. County lawsuit is actually pretty tame, language-wise; last year’s Tennessee lawsuit called it “the digital equivalent of a creepy cargo van lingering at the edge of a playground,” while Georgia’s attorney general gave it the kind of gold-star accolade you really don’t want to feature in your marketing copy, calling it “the platform of choice for child predators.”
Keep scrolling for more great stories.