A Las Vegas couple identified only as Mary and John Doe has sued Roblox, alleging the gaming platform failed to safeguard their 9-year-old daughter after a predator began sending her sexually explicit photographs and videos. The 80-page complaint, filed in Las Vegas, alleges the company failed to protect the child.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the girl, identified in the suit as Mary Doe, met the unnamed predator online in 2021. The lawsuit alleges he sent her sexually explicit content multiple times, including videos and photos of himself performing solo sex acts, continuing until 2023. The complaint does not specify whether the alleged conduct led to any criminal charges or conviction against the predator.
Central to the family’s case is the claim that Roblox still allows adults to contact and message children, including through public chats while games are being played. The suit alleges predators can message children directly in those in-game chat spaces, and that the company left intact what the complaint describes as a blueprint for predators to find kids through games they know children already frequent.
Nevada’s Recent Settlement Looms Over the Case
The new lawsuit arrives just months after Roblox settled a separate case brought by the Nevada Attorney General’s Office for $12 million, agreeing to implement a slate of child-safety measures. Those safeguards require Roblox to verify the ages of all its Nevada users, bar minors from using encrypted messaging, and place restrictions on who minors can communicate with, the Review-Journal reported. Roblox’s CEO said adults can no longer communicate with users under 16.
Despite that settlement, the new complaint alleges Roblox’s safety changes have not prevented predators from reaching children. Roblox has announced communication restrictions, but the family’s attorneys argue adults can still reach children through public in-game chat.
A Pattern Playing Out Across the Country
Roblox faces approximately 150 federal lawsuits.
Southern California has produced its own cases. A Los Angeles County mother identified as Mary Doe sued Roblox and Discord after her daughter encountered a sexual predator through the platform, and a second Southern California family filed suit alleging a child met a man on Roblox who later lured and sexually assaulted the child
Company Points to Safety Tools as Scrutiny Grows
Roblox did not respond to the Review-Journal’s request for comment on the Las Vegas lawsuit. The company has told other outlets that safety is a top priority and that it maintains advanced safeguards and filters designed to prevent harmful content and communications on its platform, according to the BBC.
The scale of the platform underscores why the stakes are high for families: Roblox had more than 132 million daily active users worldwide, the BBC reported. The company is rolling out age-based accounts as part of an expanded child-safety system. The system uses age estimates and age-based chat restrictions, per the same BBC report. Roblox also rolled out mandatory age-verification checks for all users in the United Kingdom in January.
Back in Las Vegas, the family’s attorneys frame their case as part of a broader reckoning for a platform tens of millions of children log into daily, according to company annual reports cited in the complaint. Whatever the outcome, the lawsuit adds another entry to a growing legal record that regulators, parents and courts are still sorting through state by state.
