Bird’s complaint cites another, earlier lawsuit, filed on behalf of two Iowa parents. In court filings, the parents claim that their 13-year-old daughter was groomed by an adult she met on Roblox. During a trip to her grandmother’s house, the girl vanished. She was later found in Tennessee, where she had been taken and abused by the same adult.
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird has filed a lawsuit against Roblox, claiming that the online gaming platform prioritizes profits over the safety of its youngest and most vulnerable users.
According to The Iowa Capital Dispatch, the lawsuit was filed by Bird’s office on Tuesday.
In it, the attorney general accused Roblox of taking a lackadaisical approach to age-verification procedures and general content restrictions. Roblox, Bird says, has failed to address sexual exploitation and created an environment where predation is, at least to a point, tolerated.
Bird’s complaint cites another, earlier lawsuit, filed on behalf of two Iowa parents. In court filings, the parents claim that their 13-year-old daughter was groomed by an adult she met on Roblox. During a trip to her grandmother’s house, the girl vanished. She was later found in Tennessee, where she had been taken and abused by the same adult.
“This tragic example is indicative of a pattern of grooming and predatory behavior on Roblox, of which Roblox has long been aware,” the attorney general’s lawsuit states.
Bird’s office is asking the court to grant preliminary and permanent injunctions against Roblox. If approved, these decisions would prevent Roblox from continuing to engage in allegedly “deceptive and unfair acts” by either banning Roblox from doing business in Iowa or requiring that the company place “additional safeguards and child protection requirements on the Roblox platform.”
“We will fight for our children. Roblox created a breeding ground for sexual predators, and Iowa’s children are paying the price,” Bird said in a statement. “Roblox must either make their game a safe place for children or stop doing business in our state. Parents must be told the truth so they can protect their children online from inappropriate material, grooming, exploitation, and other predatory practices.”
Matt Kaufman, Roblox’s chief safety officer, has contested Bird’s allegations, saying that the lawsuit contains “patently false claims about our platform.” Kaufman stressed that, in recent years, Roblox has taken many steps to protect children from digital predation.
“Roblox is built with safety at its core,” Kaufman said in a statement. “We have advanced safeguards that monitor our platform for harmful content and communications. Users cannot send or receive images via chat, eliminating one of the most prevalent opportunities for misuse seen elsewhere online. Safety is a constant and consistent focus of our work, and we are currently rolling out additional measures to further limit who users can chat with. We take swift action against anyone found to violate our safety rules and work closely with law enforcement to support investigations and help hold bad actors accountable.”
Sources
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird files lawsuit against Roblox
Iowa lawsuit against Roblox seeks better child safety features
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