New lawsuit accuses Roblox of enabling sexual exploitation

A Florida teenager is suing Roblox and Discord for what she describes as the platforms enabling the alleged sexual abuse and exploitation she faced using them, according to a lawsuit filed April 21.

The girl, now 18, says she started using Roblox at 12 after getting permission from her parents to use the app. Several years in, according to the lawsuit, the girl’s father discovered that his daughter had been communicating with an older man whom they describe as having groomed her through both Roblox and Discord. The lawsuit says the man coerced and manipulated the girl into sending explicit photos and videos, then used these as blackmail to extract more from the girl. The two met on Roblox games called MIC Up and Write a Letter, per the lawsuit.

The lawyers, Anapol Weiss and Girard Sharp, write in the complaint:

Soon after Plaintiff was sexually exploited as the result of Defendants’ defectively designed apps, she became severely depressed and introverted. She refused to eat in the lunchroom, instead retreating to the quiet, isolated bathroom stalls. Her grades declined significantly, whereas they had previously been stellar. She had great friends and alienated herself from them. She dropped out of the ROTC program that she previously loved. She stopped roller skating and going to the beach, activities that she had previously insisted upon doing on a regular basis.

They also say the girl self harms and has attempted suicide as a result of the abuse.

The 18-year-old’s story is a small part of the 100-page complaint, which details her own story, but also alleges the exploitation of children as a systemic issue that both Roblox and Discord have failed to address. “This action, therefore, is not just a battle to vindicate Plaintiff’s rights—it is a stand against Defendants’ systemic failures to protect society’s most vulnerable from unthinkable harm in pursuit of financial gain over child safety,” the lawyers wrote.

The lawsuit cites comprehensive Bloomberg reporting that has been, for years, detailing Roblox’s alleged pedophile problem. It also cites a report from Hindenburg Research, which Roblox has refuted. The company has since rolled out numerous child safety tools, but problems persist: A Bloomberg report from Monday detailed a group recreating mass shootings on the gaming platform.

Weiss, too, has already sued Roblox in February in a lawsuit that uses a lot of the same language, wherein she alleges a 13-year-old boy was “horrifically and traumatically sexually exploited” on Roblox. On April 16, Florida attorney general James Uthmeier subpoenaed Roblox to collect information “about how the platform markets to children, sets age-verification requirements, and moderates chat rooms.” A day later, on April 17, New Jersey attorney general Matthew Platkin announced he’s suing Discord over “deceptive and unconscionable business practices that misled parents about the efficacy of its safety controls and obscured the risks children faced when using the application.”