Simon denied trying to upload any images of Hitler, but admitted that he had previously been banned when he was 15 on an account with an inappropriate name he claimed was created as a joke as well as likely having used slurs in-game around the same age. Individuals taking part in these games appear to overwhelmingly identify as part of vulnerable or marginalized demographics, namely those of queer or BIPOC communities. One prominent example is MeepCity, which was infamous for number of online daters inside the game and inappropriate clothing and actions found in the “party” feature. Violative users often signal their intent through veiled messages like “abc for girl” or “abc to control me”, after which others can accept through private chat. Because such games are quickly moderated, these communities often rely on Discord servers, a third-party chat app, to alert their members when a new sex game appears.
- The suit alleged that by actively shutting down independent efforts to expose potential dangers on its platform, Roblox was failing in its duty to protect underage users from harm.
- Our survey reveals clear coping mechanisms players adopt.
- Violative users often signal their intent through veiled messages like “abc for girl” or “abc to control me”, after which others can accept through private chat.
- FC Playtime was designed to help FC players understand and control how they play.
- Our survey found that 85.25% of respondents believe gaming platforms should actively moderate offensive content (such as hate symbols, slurs, or sexually explicit mods/skins).
- However, these restrictions did not apply to advergames, leading to further criticism by Truth in Advertising and children’s digital rights organization 5Rights.
Take control of your play
From content filters to limiting chat options, parental controls give you more oversight on who your child can communicate with and what they can play. Learn more about our Positive Play Charter and how to report players. FC Playtime was designed to help FC players understand and control how they play. NetSmartz is NCMEC’s online safety education program. But there’s still more to do—join us in protecting children and supporting our mission. On September 15, 2025, Oklahoma attorney general Gentner Drummond announced that he was seeking outside law firms to investigate Roblox over alleged child exploitation and safety failures.
- On November 18, 2025, Roblox announced that all forms of in-game chat and experiences rated “18+” on the platform would be locked behind an age verification system.
- On March 4, 2026, Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers filed a lawsuit against Roblox, accusing the platform of becoming a “playground” for child predators and misleading parents and guardians about the safety precautions taken on the platform.
- In addition, the Spanish Civil Guard also issued a statement saying that reports of sex offenders using Roblox to extort minors were becoming much more frequent in Spain, where they recorded cases of several minors in Murcia who had begun to interact and maintain direct contact with pedophiles in southern Spain.
- At what age should I allow my child to play games online?
- While not explicitly sexual, some games have been reported to feature suggestive environments that facilitate sexual or fetishistic roleplay such as vore or feet fetishes.
As of August 2025update, the corporation is facing several lawsuits in the United States for alleged failures to protect children. Poki Kids is an online playground specially created for young players. We guard against gamers attempting to move the conversation away from the protected gaming platform to discord or other messaging apps. “If users have a bad experience, whether it’s harassment in a game, scams on a marketplace, or hate speech on a social platform, retention becomes nearly impossible.
Watching or playing the game together lets you see firsthand if anything feels inappropriate or concerning and opens the door to meaningful discussions about online safety. While video games can be a great source of entertainment, creativity, and even learning, they also come with certain risks that parents should be aware of. May contain intense violence, blood and gore, sexual content and/or strong language. The first step in ensuring you, and your family, have a positive and safe experience when playing is understanding the tools available on your game platforms.
PITTSBURGH PUBLIC SCHOOLS
She also requested that the game’s PG rating be reviewed again by the Australian Classification Board, where it was noted that the platform hosted games intended for adults. The system requires users to either upload an ID to verify their exact age or perform a facial scan via Persona to place a person into an estimated age group. On November 18, 2025, Roblox announced that all forms of in-game chat and experiences rated “18+” on the platform would be locked behind an age verification system. In October 2025, Roblox planned revenue changes in order to expand child safety and moderation which caused the stock of the company to fall by 15 percent, though the company stated they expect a rising third quarter capital after the changes are made.
Hindenburg Research cited a similar game, Public Bathroom Simulator Vibe, as one of the reasons Roblox is an “X-rated pedophile hellscape”. He stated in July 2025 that Roblox could serve as an effective online dating platform and that it could help lonely people meet in real life. Roblox has rejected claims made by these organizations, alleging that they were highlighting rare instances and that their promotion only served to further an agenda of causing others to sell stock. The developer would later be sentenced to 15 years in prison for paying an Uber driver to drive a 15-year-old child from Indiana to his home state of New Jersey for sex. Although his account was terminated, he transferred the game to a friend’s account and continued to make money from the game.
GameSafe App Features
At what age should I allow my child to play games online? There are different ways to enhance and manage your and your family’s experience when playing games online. On March 4, 2026, Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers filed a lawsuit against Roblox, accusing the platform of becoming a “playground” for child predators and misleading parents and guardians about the safety precautions taken on the platform. In April 2025, Florida attorney general James Uthmeier sent a subpoena to Roblox about uses of the platform by users age 16 and under as well as the platform’s protections for children against “mature content”.
Sexual predation
Teens who pass the age test would be able to add anyone aged 13 through 17 as a trusted connection without restriction, though users over 18 years old would need to use a QR code or phone number to add verified teen users. In October 2020, the Roblox Corporation reported employing approximately 1,600 full-time employees dedicated to content moderation. In-game mechanics for self-expression such as user avatars, item decorations, and spray paint tools were also identified as being used to spread extremist and hateful imagery. One high-profile group in Roblox, called “The Senate and People of Rome”, outlawed “race-mixing, feminism” and homosexuality, while also requiring another player, who was Jewish, to wear a “Judea tunic or be arrested on sight”. Investigative journalism YouTube channel People Make Games accused the platform of “exploiting” younger game developers by promising them large amounts of money from creating games, only to apply high revenue cuts and leaving creators with little to no income. In April 2022, Truth in Advertising filed a complaint against Roblox with the Federal Trade Commission for false advertising, mainly failing to disclose when advertising is present, such as with advergames and brand ambassadors.
In 2024, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that, since 2018, at least 24 people had been arrested in the United States on charges of abducting or sexually abusing children they had groomed on Roblox. According to the company in 2020, the monthly player base included half of all American children under the age of 16. A December 2017 study found that children ages 5 to 9 primarily spend their time playing Roblox over all other activities when using a PC. Additionally, in 2025, social hangout games featuring private locations such as bedrooms and bathrooms were restricted to users aged 17 and above. Around 40% of Roblox players are under 13 years old, and Roblox Corporation stated in 2020 that half of all American children used the platform. Customize alert settings for peace of mind and full control over your child’s online gaming safety.
A good gamertag should be memorable but not personally identifiable. Encourage Anonymity by Limiting Personal Information Take time to set these limits, ensuring that you have control over what’s purchased and who can connect with your child. Protect all gaming devices with reliable antivirus software to help guard against potential malware from suspicious downloads or phishing scams.
And one cannot upsell content to players who have already left. Moderating images, voice, and video content in real time requires a different architecture than batch- or queue-based moderation systems. According to Apostolos Georgakis, our CTO at Besedo, real-time, AI-driven content moderation combined with strong policy enforcement is the robust solution online gaming desperately needs. The end goal isn’t to play nanny or ruin the fun – it’s to cultivate communities where all players can have fun without fear of harassment.
We’re Commited to Positive Play
The days of a hands-off approach (“we just make the game, players can police themselves”) are over – if they ever truly existed. This phenomenon is echoed in industry-wide research, which states that 7 out of 10 gamers have avoided playing at least one game due to the game’s toxic reputation or community. This means a game studio could literally lose half of its female players due to an unsafe environment. Many gamers adapt by muting voice chats, avoiding random matchmaking, or playing only with friends. In other words, abuse has become expected – even “normal” – in many game communities, a status quo that poses serious consequences for players and the industry. As the Anti-Defamation League grimly noted, “normalized harassment and desensitization to hate frame the reality” of online gaming today.
Roblox Corporation responded to the lawsuit on August 15, stating that they continuously work “to enhance our moderation approaches to promote a safe and enjoyable environment for all users”. The suit alleged that by actively shutting down independent efforts to expose potential dangers on its platform, Roblox was failing in its duty to protect underage users from harm. On August 14, 2025, Louisiana attorney general Liz Murrill filed a child protection lawsuit against Roblox Corporation. The lawsuit alleges that Roblox profited off minors when they bought Robux to participate in third-party gambling rings, violating the RICO act. Following the platform ban in Buenos Aires, the secretaries of public education in the provinces of Córdoba, Mendoza and Misiones issued regional bans on Roblox on all public school devices after multiple reports of grooming and child harassment. The Ministry of Education made this decision after a case of child exploitation in which the platform was being actively used by pedophiles based in the city of Cipolletti, who requested intimate photos of minors in exchange for Robux.
Between September and December 2025, authorities in the states of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul informed parents that the platform was being used by pedophile networks to solicit sexual and self-harm videos from minors in exchange for Robux in cities in southern Brazil. In August 2025, the Defensoría del Pueblo de la Provincia de Catamarca informed parents in the Argentine province that the platform’s security was insufficient to protect minors and that in recent years cases of sexual harassment of minors were becoming more frequent in the province thanks to Roblox. The Division of Cybercrime of the Scientific, Penal, and Criminal Investigations Corps (CICPC) was the first Venezuelan government organization to issue a national statement warning that the platform was not safe and that parents should monitor their children’s chats. The Netherlands and Belgium have restricted cubet certain games on the platform due to their regulations on in-game “loot boxes”, which give out items based on random or unknown chances, to reduce children’s exposure to gambling. In the same month, Janybek Amatov, a member of the Kyrgyz parliament, raised restrictions on games marketed to children, such as Roblox and Minecraft, following the presence of pedophiles.
A toxic reputation can become a kiss of death for an online title. On the other hand, men reported significantly higher rates of insults or name-calling (64%) compared to women (47%). At Besedo, we care deeply about trust, safety, and user experience. Each console and platform offers unique controls, so be sure to review options specific to the device your child uses. You can activate it today and start protecting your kids’ online activities. This balance helps keep gaming fun and healthy without sacrificing other important activities.
“GameSafe is a must-have for any parent with gaming kids.” Dating app users are frustrated with in-app messaging. We’re Besedo and we provide content moderation tools and services to companies all over the world. Healthy communities drive deeper engagement, session length, and, yes, monetization, while toxic communities stifle all of the above. “You need compute-efficient transformer models, smart latency management, and retraining pipelines that minimize false positives and negatives in an ever-changing context.”
These gender differences are important because they show how targeted harassment can dramatically impact player retention and brand reputation. More troubling, a significant portion are walking away entirely from games they once enjoyed. Women experience notably higher rates of unwanted sexual messages (25%) compared to men (14%). Some allow you to receive notifications, while others offer message filters to block inappropriate content. Many platforms, like Discord and Roblox, have parental controls or notification settings for monitoring direct messages. Parental control settings can help you keep tabs on how long your child is gaming, set daily time limits, or even restrict internet access when gaming time is over.
On June 25, 2025, Aftermath reported that 6 people had been arrested in the United States in connection to grooming on Roblox since the start of the year. Online child exploitation groups such as 764, CVLT, and other groups affiliated with The Com have been discovered operating on Roblox, something which has been acknowledged by Roblox themselves. In the second quarter of 2025, Roblox reported a daily active user count of over 100 million, its highest on record. Robux can be used to purchase virtual items that the player can use on their virtual character (or “avatar”) on the platform, or access experiences that require payment.
You can also choose to watch the video on YouTube. The content could contain damaging software (such as spyware or viruses) or it might be offensive. If you want to meet someone IRL that you’ve been talking to online, always let a friend, parent or guardian know.