Roblox is possibly the most popular gaming platform on the planet—far more popular than you might think. Grow a Garden, a game built within the app, recently had 21.9 million concurrent players, dwarfing the likes of Fortnite and Counter-Strike 2 by multiple times. And that’s despite being an application recently described as “a pedophile hellscape for kids.” Well, it can now add another similar accolade to its collection, as the entire state of Louisiana has announced it’s suing Roblox, calling it “a breeding ground for sex predators.”
Louisiana attorney general Liz Murrill announced the action via X, explaining that she’s coming after the gaming platform due to its “lack of safety protocols,” and the claim that this results in danger for children. Which, in most circumstances, might come across as all-too-familiar hyperbole from a member of government looking for a moral panic to latch onto. It’s just, in the case of Roblox, it’s something that’s been demonstrated to be true over and over again. But no matter the accuracy, the question remains: What is the actual, practical purpose of this suit?
“Roblox is overrun with harmful content and child predators,” says Murrill, “because it prioritizes user growth, revenue, and profits over child safety. Every parent should be aware of the clear and present danger poised to their children by Roblox so they can prevent the unthinkable from ever happening in their own home.”
BREAKING: Today I’m suing Roblox – the #1 gaming site for children and teens – and a breeding ground for sex predators.
Due to Roblox’s lack of safety protocols, it endangers the safety of the children of Louisiana. Roblox is overrun with harmful content and child predators… pic.twitter.com/p98Sq8vvMb
— Attorney General Liz Murrill (@AGLizMurrill) August 14, 2025
The longer statement goes on to describe the motivation behind the suit.
“Because there is no age minimum and requirement to verify age or parental permission once you sign-up, users can easily say they are younger or older than their actual age – allowing child predators to pose as children and for children to bypass any age requirement.
Once registered, users have access to millions of games such as sports, role-playing, naval, fashion, and comedy. Other games which have existed on the platform including Escape to Epstein Island, Diddy Party, and Public Bathroom Simulator Vibe are not as innocent. These games and others are often filled with sexually explicit material and simulated sexual activity such as child gang rape.”
Again, every muscle in my body wants to type out why this Republican AG is wrong and how she’s willfully misinterpreting the facts to condemn a topic she doesn’t understand…but, well, I’ve tested it all for myself, and it’s true. You can absolutely sign up as being any age up to 17 without any verification requirements, and passing as over 17 isn’t a herculean effort. But there’s little need, since many of the violent and sexual games are simply marked as suitable for teens so there’s no restrictions to playing them. Oh, and despite my own son not being allowed to use Roblox (I am the meanest father), his friends do and so I get to hear about “Diddy Party” and the like far more often than anyone could want.
Changes were made toward the end of 2024 that added new options for parents, allowing them to prevent their under-13s from being able to use in-game chat features, and that stopped children under 9 from accessing teenage content. However, it’s more extraordinary that even these most basic levels of protection hadn’t been included for the app’s first 18 years. And even in the wake of these changes, there’s still nothing to stop a 13-year-old from accessing very adult content or having un-monitored text communication with anyone. (As a parent of a 10-year-old who plays Gorilla Tag on his VR, I’m acutely aware how much more pernicious text chat is than audio.)
Teenage privacy and online communication is a massively fraught and complex subject, one for each family to wrestle with among themselves, but it remains the case that investigations into Roblox have found groups “openly trading child pornography and soliciting sexual acts from minors,” even when signed in using under-13 accounts.
Now, obviously the vast majority of the 80 million people who play Roblox every day are fine, even if they’re having their precious youths wasted on Italian Brainrot memes. I think what most people are after is just more effort on the parts of the owners to better protect young users from the very obvious harms that are possible. Although given some of the awful things those owners are wont to say, hopes for common sense aren’t high.
It’ll be interesting to see what this peculiar lawsuit is intended to achieve. It seems more like attention-seeking noise than anything practical. The article cites the same Hindenburg Research investigation we’ve linked above, and then mentions a recent case in Livingston Parish where a home was raided after someone was trying to lure children via Roblox (we haven’t been able to verify this, and even the text of the official lawsuit doesn’t cite any evidence), before stating, “For these and other reasons, Roblox is in violation of Louisiana law.”
Which laws?
“The State is seeking permanent injunctive relief and prohibiting them from:
- Engaging in any activity in violation of Louisiana Unfair Trade Practices Act:
- Representing that Roblox has adequate safety features
- Restitution to the State of Louisiana
- Attorney’s fees
- All additional civil penalties allowable under law
- All additional damages allowable under law”
Presumably there’s a hope that this will force Roblox, the company, to take its responsibilities more seriously, given it cannot control its distribution on a state-by-state level. However, it seems more likely the kerjillion-dollar company will just settle to make it all go away.
