By Gavin Boyle
Roblox faces yet another lawsuit that claims it has failed to protect young users from predators despite years of Roblox claiming it cares about the safety of its players.
“[Roblox is a] hunting ground [for predators],” the lawsuit claims, per the Christian Post. “As a direct result of Defendant’s reckless disregard for child safety, Plaintiff has suffered devastating life-altering psychological trauma. His life will never be the same.”
“After cultivating Plaintiff’s trust on Defendant’s dangerous app, the predators sent Plaintiff graphic messages and sent him sexually explicit images of themselves,” the complaint continued. “Exploiting the trust he had been allowed to build through Defendant’s defective app, the predator coerced Plaintiff to send sexually explicit images of himself – including images of his genitals.”
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Related: Roblox Isn’t Safe for Your Kids. In Fact, It’s a ‘Pedophile Hellscape’
Parents and safety experts have criticized Roblox for years for the way it fails to protect its younger users. This new lawsuit is one of many coming from parents looking to hold the company accountable for the harm that has befallen their children after using the site. Roblox, however, continues to maintain that users are safe on the platform despite being called, among other things, a “pedophile hellscape” by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
To help restore its public image, Roblox launched a massive safety overhaul this year to make it harder for adults to communicate with minors on the site, however, these changes have yet to make an impact as cases of abuse and exploitation continue to occur.
The claims against the site have gotten so serious that in October the Florida Attorney General, James Uthemeier, announced that his office would launch a probe into the platform’s child safety.
“Platforms like Roblox have become breeding ground for predators to gain access to our kids,” Uthmeier said. “We will stop at nothing in the fight to protect Florida’s children, and companies that expose them to harm will be held accountable.”
Meanwhile, through every lawsuit and piece of bad press, Roblox continues to argue that it is the gold standard for child safety, claiming every action the platform takes is in the interest of protecting its young users.
“The reason why we’re here, it’s so important for us to really land the message of how much we prioritize safety,” Roblox vice president of civility and partnerships Tami Bhaumik said at the end of September. “I’m gonna call out the elephant in the room: many of you may have seen negative press about Roblox in the last month or so.”
“And it’s very important — because we’re meeting now with safety organizations, researchers, academics, we’re meeting with governments — to really, really make it very clear what a safety framework is and how much we prioritize it,” Bhaumik continued. “We’ve launched over 100 new safety features over the course of the last year. A lot of the negative press has come from things that have happened five years ago.”
If this were actually the case, though, new lawsuits would not be popping up as more kids continue to be abused and exploited on the site. Parents should be extremely wary of allowing their kids on Roblox until the platform is truly able to protect its young users from predators.
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