Roblox has long faced criticism over child safety on its platform. Now it has started settling with state attorneys over the issue, and the total is climbing fast.
On April 21, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall announced a $12.2 million settlement with the child-focused online gaming platform. The State of West Virginia also settled for $11 million the same day. Those came a week after Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford got the company to hand over $12 million.
Their problem with Roblox is clear from the settlement documents: they believe it hasnāt been adequately protecting children from predators on its platform.
What Roblox has to change
As part of Alabamaās settlement, Roblox must now run age checks on everyone via facial age estimation or a government ID starting May 1. That applies to both new and existing accounts. The company must now also monitor account behavior to catch users who lied about their age.
Adults and under-16s wonāt be able to talk with each other at all unless theyāre on a ātrusted friendā list, added via QR code or a phone-contact import, and users that donāt undergo age verification canāt chat to anyone.Ā
Communication involving any minor cannot be encrypted, so law enforcement can read it during investigations. West Virginiaās settlement also insists that Roblox alert minors the first time they enter a private chat, so children understand how to communicate safely.
Roblox already stopped people from chatting without age verification as of January this year, but under new measures it will start restricting access to games for those that donāt undergo the process. Starting in June, the platform will split into three tiers: Roblox Kids for ages 5ā8 will forbid any chats at all, and will only allow access to games labeled āminimalā or āmildā on its maturity scale. Those who donāt complete age verification will also have these restrictions. The other two account levels are Roblox Select for 9ā15 year-olds, and standard accounts for those 16 and up.
Plenty more lawsuits to come
Three settlements in eight days totaling more than $35 million must hurt, but itās just the beginning. Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Kentucky, and Tennessee are all pursuing similar claims: that Roblox exposed children to risk and then misled parents about its safeguards.
In February, LA County sued Roblox, accusing the platform of choosing profit over safety and leaving kids exposed to grooming and explicit content.
Roblox is also separately dealing with nearly 80 federal lawsuits filed by families in California alone. And Australiaās eSafety Commissioner has also issued legally-enforceable transparency notices to Roblox and other tech companies. These force them to detail what theyāre doing to protect children. Those notices are backed by fines of A$825,000 a day (thatās about US$590,783) for non-compliance.
Where the money will go
The $12.2 million from Alabamaās settlement funds school resource officers through the stateās Safe School Initiative. Nevadaās is earmarked for the Boys & Girls Club and ānondigital activities,ā plus a law-enforcement liaison and an online-safety awareness campaign. West Virginia will invest $500,000 in safety education workshops for parents and children, create a $1.5 million three-year public safety campaign, and spend $2.4 million on a dedicated internet safety specialist for six years.
Stay alert
Thereās a predictable rhythm to how big tech companies face down state attorneys general. First comes pushback, then rhetoric about shared values, and then they start handing over cash.
It is a step forward that Roblox is agreeing to new safeguards, but questions remain.
In its own lawsuit against Roblox launched last month, Nebraska complained that the companyās existing age-check technology was inadequate. From the complaint:
āRather than meaningfully protecting children, the system has repeatedly misclassified usersā ages, placing adults in child chat groups and minors in adult categories, while age-verified accounts for young children have already been traded on third-party marketplaces, undermining any purported safety benefits.ā
What happens when the age-estimation AI guesses wrong on a 14-year-old who looks 17, or when a ātrusted friendā QR code gets passed around a group chat somewhere it shouldnāt?
The companyās Persona age-check tool has also turned out to do more than check ages: researchers say they found an exposed frontend showing the system was also running facial recognition against watchlists.
Settlements address past concerns, but they donāt guarantee future safety. Parents must still do the work to ensure that they know what their kids are signing up for and who else they might be playing with.
For more information about the safety of Roblox and other services, check out our research: How Safe are Kids Using Social Media?
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