At what age should I allow my child to play games online? There are different ways to enhance and manage your and your family’s experience when playing games online. On March 4, 2026, Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers filed a lawsuit against Roblox, accusing the platform of becoming a “playground” for child predators and misleading parents and guardians about the safety precautions taken on the platform. In April 2025, Florida attorney general James Uthmeier sent a subpoena to Roblox about uses of the platform by users age 16 and under as well as the platform’s protections for children against “mature content”.
In September 2025, Núcleo Jornalismo launched an investigation into Roblox content aimed at children in Brazil with the support of academics and researchers from various universities in São Paulo. Users have been documented evading Roblox content and chat moderation to perform sexual content by taking activity offsite to other social media platforms, especially Discord. The European video game content rating system PEGI classifies the game as “parental guidance recommended”, while prior to September 2022 it classified the game as “suitable for 7 years and over”.
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From February to May 2025, law firm Anapol Weiss filed four different lawsuits against Roblox on behalf of children for alleged exploitation by adults. The lawsuit alleges that Roblox connected their daughter with online predators, who sexually exploited her by coercing her to send sexually explicit photos to them on Discord and Snapchat; those corporations were also named in the lawsuit. Other federal governments, such as Coahuila and Nuevo León, sent communications to parents stating that Roblox was being used to extort minors. In December 2025, access to Roblox was blocked in Russia due to it allegedly containing extremist material and “international LGBT propaganda”, with Roskomnadzor saying that the platform was “rife with inappropriate content that can negatively impact the spiritual and moral development of children”. In October 2025, the Attorney General’s Office in Lleida, Catalonia, Spain, launched a series of investigations following several reports from parents whose children had been harassed through Roblox. On February 3, the Egyptian government decided to completely ban the platform following a decision by the Supreme Council for Media Regulation (SCMR), which had determined that the platform’s content posed significant risks to minors over “violent content”.
Statements like this are important – they set the tone from the top that toxic behavior is not welcome on major platforms. Leading figures in gaming have started to openly acknowledge this responsibility. Players aren’t asking for censorship, they’re asking for safety. For platform owners, this is yet another signal that cleaning up online spaces isn’t just a moral duty – it’s necessary to secure the trust of families and the market’s longevity. The gaming industry has long focused on cultivating the next generation of fans, but toxicity is blocking the on-ramp. If most adults wouldn’t let their kids into your online ecosystem, you’re seeding a future audience problem.
Moderation and safety updates
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Public Bathroom Simulator
- In April 2025, Florida attorney general James Uthmeier sent a subpoena to Roblox about uses of the platform by users age 16 and under as well as the platform’s protections for children against “mature content”.
- Poki Kids is an online playground specially created for young players.
- In September 2025, Algerian authorities banned the game, citing that the company did not have sufficient tools and capacity to protect children, where the vast majority of Algerian users were under the age of 10 and were being exposed to sexual harassment and inappropriate content on the platform.
- People may act differently IRL than they do online.
- Although his account was terminated, he transferred the game to a friend’s account and continued to make money from the game.
- If your child uses voice chat, encourage them to play using speakers rather than headphones.
As of August 2025update, the corporation is facing several lawsuits in the United States for alleged failures to protect children. Poki Kids is an online playground specially created for young players. We guard against gamers attempting to move the conversation away from the protected gaming platform to discord or other messaging apps. “If users have a bad experience, whether it’s harassment in a game, scams on a marketplace, or hate speech on a social platform, retention becomes nearly impossible.
At Electronic Arts, we want to empower our players and parents to make informed decisions about gameplay.
Throughout the 2020s, the cyber police divisions of several Mexican states have reported numerous cases of sexual harassment of minors through Roblox, including the federal government of Chihuahua, which from 2021 to 2025 reported an increase in cases of grooming using the platform. In December 2025, the Moroccan government took the first steps to moderate the platform and other online games after repeated warnings from several members of parliament who voiced their concern that the platform could be a danger to minors such as Fatima Zahra Afif. In October 2025, the Lebanese Association for Statistics, Training, and Development urged the Lebanese government to ban the video game following reports that 30% of minors in the country could be exposed to inappropriate content. This announcement was met with major backlash from parents, creators, safety advocates, and many online communities who feared it would put children at a greater risk. A 2023 study by researchers from Pennsylvania State University analyzing discussion among users of the community noted that roleplaying games aligned with prejudiced or extremist values seemed to hide or only imply their values to players, occurrences of which usually took place in military roleplaying games.
The days of a hands-off approach (“we just make the game, players can police themselves”) are over – if they ever truly existed. This phenomenon is echoed in industry-wide research, which states that 7 out of 10 gamers have avoided playing at least one game due to the game’s toxic reputation or community. This means a game studio could literally lose half of its female players due to an unsafe environment. Many gamers adapt by muting voice chats, avoiding random matchmaking, or playing only with friends. In other words, abuse has become expected – even “normal” – in many game communities, a status quo that poses serious consequences for players and the industry. As the Anti-Defamation League grimly noted, “normalized harassment and desensitization to hate frame the reality” of online gaming today.
The platform is made to appeal to a family-friendly audience, and has been described as a massively multiplayer online game (MMO). The games featured on Roblox vary in genre, from role-playing games to ones centered around escaping prison, among others. Games can be created by any user through the platform’s game engine, Roblox Studio, and then be shared to and played by other players.
Online Gaming Safety: 9 in 10 Gamers Wouldn’t Let Their Kid Play
While Roblox is free-to-play, it features a virtual currency known as “Robux” that can be purchased with real-world money. We’re passionate about making sure it’s a super safe environment for kids to play and enjoy themselves. We watch for any act of targeting, or verbally attacking or intimidating your child. See all your child’s activity in one place. “GameSafe is a parent’s best friend in the digital age.”
Technology’s role in safer gaming communities
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Roblox Corporation responded to the lawsuit on August 15, stating that they continuously work “to enhance our moderation approaches to promote a safe and enjoyable environment for all users”. The suit alleged that by actively shutting down independent efforts to expose potential dangers on its platform, Roblox was failing in its duty to protect underage users from harm. On August 14, 2025, Louisiana attorney general Liz Murrill filed a child protection lawsuit against Roblox Corporation. The lawsuit alleges that Roblox profited off minors when they bought Robux to participate in third-party gambling rings, violating the RICO act. Following the platform ban in Buenos Aires, the secretaries of public education in the provinces of Córdoba, Mendoza and Misiones issued regional bans on Roblox on all public school devices after multiple reports of grooming and child harassment. The Ministry of Education made this decision after a case of child exploitation in which the platform was being actively used by pedophiles based in the city of Cipolletti, who requested intimate photos of minors in exchange for Robux.
Hindenburg Research cited a similar game, Public Bathroom Simulator Vibe, as one of the reasons Roblox is an “X-rated pedophile hellscape”. He stated in July 2025 that Roblox could serve as an effective online dating platform and that it could help lonely people meet in real life. Roblox has rejected claims made by these organizations, alleging that they were highlighting rare instances and that their promotion only served to further an agenda of causing others to sell stock. The developer would later be sentenced to 15 years in prison for paying an Uber driver to drive a 15-year-old child from Indiana to his home state of New Jersey for sex. Although his account was terminated, he transferred the game to a friend’s account and continued to make money from the game.
More than 90% of children over the age of 2 play video games, and three-quarters of American households own a video game console, according to the National Institutes of Health. We know it’s important to understand and be comfortable with the video games you and your children are playing. That same month, a different class action lawsuit was filed by parents against Roblox for false advertising, exposing children to sexual content, and enabling children to spend large amounts of their parents’ money on Robux. El Haïry also emphasized that the conversation about protecting children online should also include video games and not just social media in general.
The platform implemented a rehaul of its friend system with age verification through facial recognition or through a government-issued ID. Roblox Corporation has responded to some concerns by launching updates cubet intended to boost child safety, and it employs about 3,000 moderators. Concerns include exposure to sexual content, sexual predation, political extremism, and financial exploitation, which have led to some countries banning the platform. We detect manipulative behaviors by perpetrators to exploit children, often through shared interests.
“GameSafe is a must-have for any parent with gaming kids.” Dating app users are frustrated with in-app messaging. We’re Besedo and we provide content moderation tools and services to companies all over the world. Healthy communities drive deeper engagement, session length, and, yes, monetization, while toxic communities stifle all of the above. “You need compute-efficient transformer models, smart latency management, and retraining pipelines that minimize false positives and negatives in an ever-changing context.”
Child safety on Roblox
- On December 18, 2025, the Attorney General of Tennessee Jonathan Skrmetti would sue Roblox for misleading parents about child safety, saying that “Roblox is the digital equivalent of a creepy cargo van lingering at the edge of a playground”.
- A good gamertag should be memorable but not personally identifiable.
- If nearly half of a player base quits or avoids a game due to toxicity, any plans for growth or monetization are basically dead on arrival.
- “GameSafe is a must-have for any parent with gaming kids.”
- On November 6, 2025, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the Roblox Corporation, alleging that the company misleadingly promoted its platform as a safe environment for children.
- At Besedo, we care deeply about trust, safety, and user experience.
Simon denied trying to upload any images of Hitler, but admitted that he had previously been banned when he was 15 on an account with an inappropriate name he claimed was created as a joke as well as likely having used slurs in-game around the same age. Individuals taking part in these games appear to overwhelmingly identify as part of vulnerable or marginalized demographics, namely those of queer or BIPOC communities. One prominent example is MeepCity, which was infamous for number of online daters inside the game and inappropriate clothing and actions found in the “party” feature. Violative users often signal their intent through veiled messages like “abc for girl” or “abc to control me”, after which others can accept through private chat. Because such games are quickly moderated, these communities often rely on Discord servers, a third-party chat app, to alert their members when a new sex game appears.
In 2024, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that, since 2018, at least 24 people had been arrested in the United States on charges of abducting or sexually abusing children they had groomed on Roblox. According to the company in 2020, the monthly player base included half of all American children under the age of 16. A December 2017 study found that children ages 5 to 9 primarily spend their time playing Roblox over all other activities when using a PC. Additionally, in 2025, social hangout games featuring private locations such as bedrooms and bathrooms were restricted to users aged 17 and above. Around 40% of Roblox players are under 13 years old, and Roblox Corporation stated in 2020 that half of all American children used the platform. Customize alert settings for peace of mind and full control over your child’s online gaming safety.
