Children's platform Roblox 'repeatedly exposes children to sexual content and harmful adults'
Roblox’s users include millions of young children from the age of five upward who, adopting the guise of block-like avatars, play a choice of seven million games created by other users.
Online child safety campaigners, including Jonathan Haidt, the bestselling writer on the mental health impacts of social media, have called on the Trump administration to investigate Roblox, the booming gaming and chat platform used by 150 million people daily, including a large number of under-13s.
Mr Haidt’s Anxious Generation Movement, Fairplay, and the right-wing anti-pornography National Center on Sexual Exploitation are among groups claiming Roblox’s design and business model conflict with children’s developmental needs.
They have filed a dossier to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that criticises the platform’s “engagement-maximising design features”, alleges its voice and text chat features “repeatedly expose children to sexual content and harmful adults, resulting in sexual exploitation and abuse” and says its in-game purchasing currency, Robux, monetises children’s “lack of impulse control”.
Roblox’s users include millions of young children from the age of five upward who, adopting the guise of block-like avatars, play a choice of seven million games created by other users. They can also chat with other users depending on their age brackets. Nine-year-olds can chat with 16-year-olds and 13-year-olds can chat with 17-year-olds.
The most popular game is Brookhaven, where players can “own and live in amazing houses, drive cool vehicles and explore the city”, but the site has also hosted controversial games allowing sexually explicit content, violence and horror.
Roblox, based in San Mateo, California, has been growing rapidly with revenue jumping 36% to $4.9bn last year – driven by sales of the virtual currency Robux, which can be used to buy virtual items on the platform. Game creators earned $1.5bn.
Mr Haidt is the author of The Anxious Generation, which argued smartphones contribute to an international epidemic of mental illness among adolescents. Last year he highlighted Roblox when he warned about “how the monetisation strategies of multiplayer games have changed, incentivising companies to put kids into harmful situations”.
The dossier alleges recent changes to Roblox’s text and voice-chat capabilities have not eliminated possibilities for adult-child contact, and these capabilities are a source of harm to children. Roblox has recently introduced facial age estimation and other age checks, and a system called Sentinel for “real-time child endangerment detection”.
The campaigners’ intervention is the latest sign of a consumer and political backlash against online platforms that have surged in popularity, making billions for the tech companies that own them.
Last month a jury in California ruled Meta and YouTube designed addictive products that harmed young people, while, in Washington, Republican legislators have been pushing forward tougher legislation to protect children online.
A spokesperson for Roblox said it strongly disputes the campaigners’ claims and said its platform is “designed to provide a positive, healthy and enjoyable experience – we build for fun and connection, not short-term engagement.”
They said: “While no system can be perfect, we have a set of safeguards designed to support a safe and civil environment, and clear policies for game creators that require fair treatment of players.”
They said no one is required to buy Robux, and in the first quarter of 2026, only 1.4% of its users were payers. The company added that direct chat is off by default for players under the age of nine, and voice-chat features are restricted to age-checked players aged 13 or older.
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