Lawyers for L.A. County have filed suit alleging Roblox, a billion-dollar gaming company claiming to be the nation’s largest for kids, is failing to protect children from online predators, according to county officials Thursday.
The move follows a similar action announced Tuesday by Georgia’s Office of the Attorney General, which has launched an investigation into the gaming platform. Louisiana brought a similar lawsuit last year.
“Roblox” is a digital game that creates a virtual playground, where people can create interactive 3D experiences — a giant collection of user-created “worlds” — but law enforcement officials have increasingly seen these spaces as havens for predators.
A Santa Clarita Valley human-trafficking summit mentioned the game’s open environment as problematic at a 2023 event. A Willam S. Hart Union High School District presentation last year after a local investigation into child exploitation offered a similar warning about the gaming platform.
In response to the Louisiana lawsuit, Roblox issued a statement to its shareholders in August: “Any assertion that Roblox would intentionally put our users at risk of exploitation is simply untrue,” adding that, “In the past year, Roblox has introduced over 40 new features to protect its youngest users and empower parents and caregivers with greater control, including updated parental controls, stricter defaults for users under 13, and new content maturity labels.”
However, these safeguards haven’t been close to enough — and don’t include a number of “common sense” protections, according to the County Counsel’s Office, which provides legal advice and representation to the Board of Supervisors, as well as county officers, departments and various other public agencies in civil matters.
Despite years of complaints, the company has not done enough and the concerns persist, according to Scott Kuhn, assistant county counsel with the office’s Affirmative Litigation and Consumer Protection Division. He said the complaint included statements from Roblox executives who acknowledged they wouldn’t trust their own kids on the site.
“It just seemed like there weren’t steps being taken by Roblox to protect children on their site, despite all of these people coming forward and lawsuits and things like that, and so that’s what led us to get involved,” Kuhn said in a phone interview Thursday. “And we’re hoping to protect children in the county as well as throughout California, by having Roblox improve its child safety features and ID requirements and other things that will make sure it’s a safer environment for children.”
He said there should be safeguards that prevent people from signing up for 30 accounts, which is a common tactic by predators to prevent tracking, and virtual playgrounds with names invoking “P Diddy” and “Epstein Island” that could be immediately “red-flagged” by artificial intelligence tools.
A practical challenge to regulation for parents is just how massively popular the game is.
As of late October 2025, the company has reported over 151 million daily active users, and over 380 million monthly users, according to county officials.
Industry-based reports from Benzinga, a business outlet, indicate the game could have as much as 3% of the global gaming audience, primarily children for its product, with a goal of 10%.
“The company itself acknowledges that ‘Roblox was initially created to serve the younger demographic, and today we are the largest dedicated gaming platform for users aged 13 and under (U13),’” according to the county’s complaint.
Special Agent Victoria Scott of the Department of Homeland Security Investigation shared advice about screen time and warnings for online behavior in an interview with city officials last year.
“This lawsuit highlights the alarming reality of what happens when Big Tech puts profits over our children’s safety,” according to Rafael Carbajal, director of the county’s Department of Consumer and Business Affairs, in a news release. “Roblox has long been aware that predators use its product to target and exploit children, yet it has failed to take the actions necessary to prevent this horrific practice. Children are paying the price.”
Any parents who have complaints about their child’s experience with Roblox can contact the county’s DCBA by emailing [email protected], filing a complaint online at dcba.lacounty.gov, or calling 800-593-8222.
