Roblox Has Been “an X-Rated Hellscape” For Months
- Roblox faces major child safety issues, with predators and explicit content slipping through weak moderation.
- Authorities and media are investigating, including a lawsuit from Louisiana’s Attorney General and coverage by Chris Hansen.
- Roblox promises fixes, but critics say changes are too slow and profit is prioritized over safety.
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A Not So Child Friendly Platform
Roblox has come under fire in the past for its lax child safety protocols, with a Hindenburg Research report calling the platform “an X-rated Hellscape” with “inflated key user metrics” to make itself look better. Most recently, Roblox banned Schlep after the YouTuber caught six sexual predators on the platform, where more than half of all user accounts are registered to kids under 16.
Now both the Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, and Dateline’s Chris Hansen, have weighed in with their thoughts on why Roblox is a dangerous place for kids. Murrill lodged a lawsuit on Aug. 14, 2025, against the company, stating in it that Roblox is “the perfect place for pedophiles.”
Chris Hansen, known to millions of Americans for his To Catch a Predator segments on Dateline, posted a video on social media on Aug. 15 about Roblox. “You may have heard that my streaming crime network, TruBlu, and I are investigating the exploitation of children on the popular gaming platform, Roblox,” he said.
“Well it’s absolutely true and we’re deep into it. I’ve already interviewed law enforcement investigators and victims of this horrible activity. And we have some collaborators, some people who have been working in this space, including Schlep, who have committed to help us in this endeavor.”
A History of Bad Practice
Hindenburg Research is an activist short-seller group; it publishes reports on shady business dealings and then profits from that company’s tanked shares. Although this practice is controversial, Hindenburg Research has drawn attention via whistleblowing in the past, such as highlighting fraud in private investment firm Nanban Ventures, in 2023.
Its Roblox report was published in October 2024, and highlighted multiple issues that were prevalent on the platform before and since, including “zombie” accounts (bots that can farm games) and a lack of up-front screening to prevent predators from joining.
“Registered as a child, we were also able to access games like ‘Escape to Epstein Island’ and ‘Diddy Party’,” Hindenburg Research said in its report. “We found over 600 ‘Diddy’ games, including ‘Survive Diddy’ and ‘Run From Diddy Simulator’.”
These are also the kinds of things that Murrill has highlighted. In a statement on her official site, the Attorney General said: “Once registered, users have access to millions of games such as sports, role-playing, naval, fashion, and comedy. Other games which have existed on the platform including Escape to Epstein Island, Diddy Party, and Public Bathroom Simulator Vibe are not as innocent. These games and others are often filled with sexually explicit material and simulated sexual activity such as child gang rape.”
She also drew attention to a core issue with Roblox’s sign-up process, which is that “there is no age minimum and requirement to verify age or parental permission once you sign-up” so it’s very easy for predators to pretend to be someone they’re not – and even for kids to pretend they’re older than they are.
“Due to Roblox’s lack of safety protocols, it endangers the safety of the children of Louisiana. Roblox is overrun with harmful content and child predators because it prioritizes user growth, revenue, and profits over child safety. Every parent should be aware of the clear and present danger posed to their children by Roblox so they can prevent the unthinkable from ever happening in their own home.”
Roblox on The Defense
Murrill’s lawsuit is primarily to hold Roblox accountable for the ease of access of child abuse material, and for the sexual exploitation of Louisiana’s minor children through the platform. It also highlights how Roblox’s recent Annual Report mentions that the platform has 82 million daily active users, and more than 6.4 million “experiences” – these are User Generated Content (UGC), which can be fully-fledged games through to virtual hangout environments.
Roblox has already responded to this lawsuit, as well as added further comment on Schlep’s “vigilantism”, through both an official statement on its site, but also a lengthy YouTube video featuring Roblox CEO David Baszucki, Chief Safety Officer Matt Kaufman, and Senior Director of Product Policy Eliza Jacobs.
“We all want to keep Roblox safe,” said Kaufman. “And we have members of the community in these vigilante groups that started off in a really good place. They’re reporting on issues on Roblox. They’re talking about how we could do better. And we paid really careful attention.”
Ironically, Kaufman then called out these same community members (he doesn’t actively name Schlep) for violating Roblox rules, such as setting up accounts pretending to be children, even though this is the very thing Schlep has caught predators doing.
Kaufman also mentioned that Roblox doesn’t encrypt chatlogs, so he (and others) can see records of chats. And yet, predators were still active on the platform.
Make it Someone Else’s Problem
Baszucki used the video and his social media channels to call attention to Roblox’s updated policies, which includes a ban on romantic and sexual content, even in Restricted experiences (for users ages 17 and up). These bans were in effect from at least December 2024, although the new wording is a lot clearer.
Even so, there is a lot of this kind of content easily accessible on Roblox, so there’s a question of how it’s continued to slip through the cracks. For example, a search for “adult” brings up a wide variety of experiences, including Adult Playground, which has a Content Rating of “N/A”.
Roblox is also set to implement ID verification for select experiences, such as those centered around bathrooms and bedrooms, as well as ID verification for users who want to create Restricted content. Roblox might be a little late to the party putting these measures in place, but some parents might be happy to hear that they’re at least doing something to curb harmful content.
Except, as with all experiences and UGC, it’s all reliant on the creators themselves to say whether or not content contains anything for adults, or even something that might be considered sensitive. Plus, Roblox may have Parental Controls but they’re not on for the majority of content by default. And, there is nothing to stop a child from signing up with a birthdate that puts them above the control age, which is 13 years old.
Instead, as Jacobs said in the video: “We’re not taking a stance on any of these topics, and we know they can be handled in appropriate ways, and in schools and with trusted adults. But we really want to put that power in the parents’ hands.”
The Survival of Roblox
No matter which way it’s sliced, things don’t look good for Roblox. Banning users who catch sexual predators but not the predators themselves is a hell of a message to send to concerned parents.
Although Roblox has been very vocal in terms of the safety policies and rules it has, these are almost all either moderated by AI tools, or involve a convoluted report system that doesn’t guarantee answers – or even if the report reaches a real person.
Rep. Laurie Schlegel, Louisiana State Representative, posted on X on Aug. 17 that Roblox is trailing behind other social platforms by a sizable percent when it comes to reporting activities deemed unsafe for kids.
“Roblox is riddled with news reports of sexual predators and child exploitation, yet it made only 24,522 reports to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) in 2024 – FAR lower than other popular platforms.”
“The NCMEC CyberTipline is the designated reporting system for companies like Roblox to report suspected child sexual exploitation. These number of reports come from NCMEC’s 2024 CyberTipline Data.”
As for whether Roblox will survive this, it’s unclear. Overall, the company has seen increased user numbers, but its stock has seen an overall downward trend this month, which is likely to continue as more reports surface concerning Roblox predators and its failure to act.
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