Florida issues criminal subpoenas against Roblox over allegations of aiding sexual predators

Company accused of knowingly failing to implement safety measures

FILE - The gaming platform Roblox is displayed on a tablet, Oct. 30, 2021, in New York. (AP Photo/Leon Keith, File) (Leon Keith)

ORLANDO, Fla. – The Florida attorney general has issued new criminal subpoenas against online gaming platform Roblox, a new step in accusing the company of not doing enough to stop child predators from using the game, according to News4JAX sister station WKMG in Orlando.

“Platforms like Roblox have become breeding grounds for predators to gain access to our kids,” said Attorney General James Uthmeier in a news release. “We will stop at nothing in the fight to protect Florida’s children, and companies that expose them to harm will be held accountable.”

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Roblox is a virtual universe that allows users to create games and experiences which other people can play and share.

However, Roblox has faced lawsuits and state investigations in the past year over accusations that the company is not doing enough to keep sexual predators from interacting with children to groom them.

Uthmeier said the criminal subpoenas were being issued in response to reports and allegations that the company was not doing enough to verify user ages and moderate content, allowing sexually explicit material to evade the platform’s filters.

In February, a school employee in Orange County was accused of using Roblox to entice two boys to commit sex acts over video chat, offering in-game currency called “Robux” in exchange for the video.

In April, a 17-year-old in Marion County was arrested, accused of searching for children on Roblox to engage in sexual activity and create child sex abuse material.

Uthmeier subpoenaed Roblox back in April for information about how the game markets to children, including documents to show the amount of time minors spend on the platform, documents related to marketing to children, and communications to or from a Florida user reporting abuse to Roblox.

In August, Roblox announced it was using an AI system to help detect early signs of possible child endangerment, including sexual exploitative language.

The company said the Sentinel AI system had led the company to submit 1,200 reports of potential attempts at child exploitation to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in the first six months of the year.

“We’ve had filters in place all along, but those filters tend to focus on what is said in a single line of text or within just a few lines of text. And that’s really good for doing things like blocking profanity and blocking different types of abusive language and things like that,” Matt Kaufman, chief safety officer at Roblox, told the Associated Press in August. “But when you’re thinking about things related to child endangerment or grooming, the types of behaviors you’re looking at manifest over a very long period of time.”

Roblox said it was in the process of making the program open source so other platforms could also use it.


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