Louisiana sues children video game Roblox for failing to protect children from groomers.

 

Roblox logo. 

The State of Louisiana is suing the creators of the video game Roblox for failing to protect children from groomers. ABC News. The lawsuit says that Roblox failed to protect children an has allowed the site to become a haven for criminals targeting children for abuse. The state claims that the game prioritizes growth, revenue and profit over child safety. Roblox has been linked to several crimes, including a case where a 13 year old girl was raped and kidnapped after meeting a criminal on the site. Roblox is extremely popular, with 111 million users and has some protections, but predators have been able to bypass them. 

YouTube personality and vigilante, Schlep. The Independent/YouTube screenshot. 

The lawsuit comes as Roblox is mired in another controversy involving an internet vigilante named Schlep. The Independent. Schlep had received a cease and desist letter after his videos exposed several predators. Schlep was banned from Roblox for being a vigilante, causing a major backlash against Roblox. Schlep claims his actions were personal as he himself was a victim of grooming on the platform. 

🚨 BREAKING: Today I’m suing Roblox - the #1 gaming site for children and teens – and a breeding ground for sex predators.

Due to Roblox’s lack of safety protocols, it endangers the safety of the children of Louisiana. Roblox is overrun with harmful content and child predators… pic.twitter.com/p98Sq8vvMb

— Attorney General Liz Murrill (@AGLizMurrill) August 14, 2025

My Comment:

I am surprised it took this long for this issue to explode. I only know two things about Roblox, and that is that it's an extremely popular gaming platform that is popular among young children, and the game is absolutely riddled with pedophiles. Schlep's experiences on the website are not uncommon and there are a lot of examples of children getting hurt because of poor moderation. 

Of course, Roblux is hardly the only website that is targeted in this way. Places like Discord or even Facebook have the same problems. But the problem with Roblux is how they are both ignoring the problem and then attacking the people that are exposing it. 

Banning Schlep was not a good idea. He may have broken the terms of service but the optics of a guy that was exposing the predators on the platform is extremely bad. I generally think that vigilantes like this can do harm as well, there was that case where a man tried to pick up an 18 year old adult woman and was attacked like he was a pedophile, but these folks were actual pedophiles. Very few people are going to be at all sympathetic with the folks that banned Schlep. 

Will Louisiana win the lawsuit? I think it's possible. From what I understand much of Roblox is unmoderated and there are even reports of folks using the in game currency as a currency for trading illegal content. And it does seem that the leadership of Roblox is pretty actively allowing pedophiles to operate pretty openly. I don't really know what defense they would have for their behavior. 

Though I do think that Roblox is not a safe game for children right now, this does bump up some other recent free speech controversies and I am afraid that this will be used as an example. A lot of websites are rolling out ID verification systems, ostensibly to protect children. However, the laws that mandate this, like the law in UK, were obviously designed to have a chilling effect on free speech. I feel that this case could absolutely be used in the United States to get laws passed that would essentially end the open internet for anyone who isn't smart enough to install a VPN. 

It also bumps up against the other major free speech controversy, payment processors pressuring video game outlets like Steam and Itch.io to remove games they disagreed with. Visa and Mastercard had a real problem with folks playing video games, but did not have a problem with Roblox despite it being a massive hive of actual pedophiles trying to groom children. It just shows that it was never about protecting people, it was just an effort to censor speech they didn't like. 

Ultimately, I think the real problem is parents. Like I said, the problems with Roblox were well known on the internet, to the point where I knew about it and I don't have kids or play the game. Roblox does have parental controls but I don't know how many parents actually use them. Many parents just don't pay attention to what their kids are doing online and this whole situation is a real reason why that's a problem.