Roblox is back in hot water with the authorities after some very serious lawsuits this week. The popular gaming platform is instituting facial age estimation to limit chat features to curb different age groups communicating with each other. Back in August, The Detroit News reported the harrowing story of a 10-year-old Robox player who was sexually exploited. Now, with more cases coming to light, the game platform is taking steps to root out predatory behavior in their game. But, a lot of the damage has already been done.
With that case already filed in California, and more on the horizon, Roblox had to do something to counteract the perception that they didn’t have control of their own platform. However, in 2025, that horse may have already left the barn. A lot of adults with small children are familiar with their kids’ obsession. But, because of their own blind spots about the game, it’s a perfect storm for controversy.
All of these cases are way too real to take lightly. It’s clear that predators view the Roblox platform as a tool to malicious ends. But, even with these age limiting facial recognition features, can the company protect children at this stage of things? (These safety measures are a pandora’s box of their own with the established shortcomings of AI-based technologies of all stripes.) Florida’s Dolman Law Group issued a statement on this case earlier in the year.
“For nearly two decades, Roblox has provided a safe ‘no questions asked’ space for predators to roam freely amongst the very population it was created for … children,” Matthew Dolman wrote in a statement. “Roblox’s priority is putting as many users on their platform as possible to substantiate and grow their valuation, not the safety of our children and most vulnerable communities.”
Roblox and the problem with modern children’s entertainment
As more and more adults have become aware of these issues on the Roblox platform, the discourse has increased. Parents are also arguing for stronger privacy protections for users under the age of 13. All of that is sound advice! Changes well worth pursuing. But, the solutions point to larger blindspots in the children’s media ecosystem that need to be shored up.
We would be remiss that some of these issues also stem from parents needing to increase their awareness of what their kids are getting into online. A lot of elder millennial and Gen X parents simple have no idea what their children do on their phones and devices all day. (Part of this is from the lingering cultural idea of the Internet confined to a single room in your house on an old yellowing CRT monitor.) That simply isn’t the world these young people inhabit anymore. Pair those observations with a pronounced decline in both media literacy and online safety norms and you have a recipe for disaster.
Roblox is hoping some improved guardrails can protect more of their users. Their Chief Safety Officer, Matt Kaufman issued a statement along with today’s changes including the tweaks to chat. There are age verification measures for 18+ experiences (i.e. heavy violence and crude humor), sharing photos and personal information, and more.
Kaufman began, “Our priority is safety and civility. We want to make Roblox a safe, positive, age-appropriate experience for everybody. We set extremely high standards for ourselves, and we understand that the public expects the same from us.”
What does the future of kids’ media look like?
Over on the adult side of the Internet,, the debate has been raging for a while about the lack of kids’ media. It seems strange in a year where a Lilo and Stitch live action remake made a billion dollars and KPOP Demon Hunters is the biggest viral phenomenon of 2025, but the question persists. The brilliant BJ Colangelo over at /Film wrote an interesting article about the landscape for children’s media. Colangelo argues that the reason Lilo and Stitch ended up netting all that cash was because it had no natural competition in theaters or on regular TV! It’s a compelling argument, and one that grown-ups would have to be the ones to solve.
Colangelo asserts, “By assuming streaming was the death knell of television broadcasting, the standard of responsibility for broadcasters plummeted … and then the COVID-19 pandemic happened, and an entire generation of children’s formative years were spent surrounded by screens with a lower requirement for accountability in making quality media for young audiences.”
This kind of analysis is exciting because it actually triangulates a set of factors that lead to a problem, rather than bemoaning that issue’s existence on its face. Streaming has become boogeyman for a lot of creative decisions that have occurred in the last 10 years.
But, if you are the parent of a now preteen, you know that the YouTube sludge kids programming has been a problem for around a decade now? It’s in no way a new or recent phenomenon. Yes, 2020 poured gasoline on the fire. But, the pilot light was already on and burning over time.
Some approaches that could help?
Video games naturally ascended into the void where previous eras of kids programming used to exist. That along with parenting strategies focusing on eliminating danger at every turn might have left the door open for the predators we see now.
A solution lies somewhere in the middle of: 1) Make better online spaces for kids that are not dependent on implicit monetary transactions, 2) Take an active role in learning about their screen time habits, and 3) Suggest more activities that are offline because kids could use the breaks!
Hopefully, there’s justice for these families affected, and an environment where younger players can enjoy their games without danger looming in their inboxes.
(Photo Credit: Getty Images, Walt Disney Studios, Roblox, Bloxburg Development/Dress To Impress Group)
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