SALT LAKE COUNTY, Utah — A Salt Lake County family has filed a lawsuit alleging tech and gaming companies provided a gateway for a sexual predator to target their son, saying, "his life will never be the same."
The lawsuit filed Tuesday accuses Roblox and Discord of "recklessly and deceptively" operating in a way that led to the 15-year-old boy being sexually exploited and harassed while online.
In the lawsuit, the Utah family claims the popular online game, which is allegedly the most downloaded game on the planet, and social media platform "prioritize growing the number of users of their apps over child safety."
Roblox's own website says the game is where "millions of people" go to "create, play, and connect with each other in experiences built by our global community of creators." Following a similar lawsuit filed by a Kentucky family in November, Roblox claimed to have 111 million daily users.
The family says that starting in June, their teenage son began interacting with an adult predator on Roblox who was posing as a peer.
"...the predator groomed [the boy], exploiting his age and vulnerability to build a false emotional connection with him," the lawsuit reads.
The adult male is accused of leading the boy to move their conversation that began on Roblox to Discord, where the man allegedly sent the teen "explicit messages and sexually explicit images." The lawsuit says the man "coerced" the boy to send him sexually explicit images himself.
The boy's father believed Roblox was safe for children "because it is designed and marketed for kids," and that Discord was a safe place due to the company spending "considerable time and money publicly touting the safety and security of the app."
Following the interactions, the boy's family said he suffers from severe mental health issues, including social withdrawal, difficulty trusting others and depression.
Sara Beller is an attorney with the Dolman Law Group, which filed the suit in Northern California, near the Roblox headquarters.
“It’s a playground for predators!" she said. "Roblox allows these perpetrators, predators to develop trust with these children under the cloak of anonymity that Roblox provides.”
The lawsuit is seeking monetary damages for the Salt Lake County 15-year-old and his father. The firm is also hoping to force systemic change on the platform to make sure that this doesn’t happen to anyone else.
Lawyers say they also uncovered alarming Roblox “experiences” mirroring pop culture references with games like “Diddy Party” and “Escape to Epstein Island."
Beller says Roblox is similar to a toy manufacturer.
“And they say, ‘This toy, our product, it’s safe, it’s safe for kids.’ That company must ensure that its product does not harm consumers," she said. "The same is true for an online platform that says, like Roblox does, 'Our product is safe for kids.'”
Beller says this is part of mult-district litigation against Roblox, including a recent suit filed by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier.
“We’d like to see proper protocols and standards in place to ensure people can’t lie about their age," she said. "We do not believe they are doing enough there. I don’t want to see them immediately, fully shut down unless that’s the only option going forward.”
A Roblox spokesperson sent FOX 13 News a statement in response to the lawsuit, saying:
"We are deeply troubled by any incident that endangers any user. Roblox aims to build a platform that sets the bar for safety online, and we prioritize the safety of our community. This is why our policies are purposely stricter than those found on many other platforms. We limit chat for younger users, don’t allow user-to-user image sharing, and have filters designed to block the sharing of personal information. We also understand that no system is perfect and that is why we are constantly working to further improve our safety tools and platform restrictions to ensure parents can trust us to help keep their children safe online.
"We also understand this is an industry-wide issue and we are working to develop industry-wide standards and solutions. For instance, Roblox is implementing an industry-leading policy to help prevent older users from communicating with children by requiring a sophisticated facial age estimation process for all Roblox users who access our communications features. We partner with law enforcement and leading child safety and mental health organizations worldwide to combat the sexual exploitation of children and are a founding member of the Tech Coalition [technologycoalition.org]’s Lantern [technologycoalition.org] project and the nonprofit Robust Open Online Safety Tools (ROOST [roost.tools]).”
Following the November lawsuit, Roblox shared a statement about its security protocols.
"No system is perfect and our work on safety is never done. We are constantly innovating our safety systems, including adding 100 new safeguards, such as facial age estimation, [in 2025] alone," the company said.
The Utah lawsuit does not list a monetary demand, but claims the companies could have implemented security measures to minimize alleged harms, including age restrictions, controlled chats, effective parental controls and requiring parental approval and email address to sign up for accounts.
