Roblox Child Sexual Abuse Lawsuit: MDL and Alabama Settlement

The Roblox child sexual abuse lawsuits accuse the gaming company of marketing its platform as safe for kids while knowingly letting adult predators use it to contact, groom, and exploit minors. More than 160 individual family lawsuits have been consolidated into a federal multidistrict litigation in California, six state attorneys general and Los Angeles County have filed their own cases, and Alabama has reached a $12.2 million settlement.¹ The rest remain active, with major fights over forced arbitration and Section 230 immunity still unresolved.

What the Lawsuits Accuse Roblox of Doing

Across the individual cases and the government complaints, three allegations repeat.

The first is deceptive marketing. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s November 7, 2025 complaint accused Roblox of “deceptively” promoting itself as a “safe digital space of creativity” while concealing platform risks.² Nebraska’s complaint alleged Roblox’s parental controls were “misleading, ineffective, and easy to bypass.”³

The second is inadequate safety design. The complaints allege Roblox failed to implement meaningful age verification, allowed adults to freely message children through in-game chat, and did not moderate the user-generated “experiences” that make up its content. Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill’s August 14, 2025 complaint alleged games were routinely miscategorized as “all ages” by their creators, exposing minors to sexually explicit material and simulated sexual activity.⁴ Kentucky’s complaint alleged the platform’s design choices “facilitate private communication between adult predators and minors.”⁵

The third is a failure to act on known harm. A federal complaint filed in Iowa in July 2025 cited Roblox’s own internal data showing reports of suspected child sexual exploitation on the platform grew from 675 in 2019 to 13,316 in 2023.⁶

How Predators Allegedly Used the Platform

Court filings describe a recurring sequence. A predator poses as a young gamer, builds trust through shared play and gifts of Robux, and then moves the conversation to a private chat or an off-platform app like Discord or Snapchat where monitoring is minimal.⁷ Louisiana’s lawsuit cited a 2025 arrest in Livingston Parish where the suspect used voice-altering technology to mimic a younger, feminine voice to lure children.⁴ The Iowa case describes a 13-year-old girl from West Des Moines who was allegedly introduced to her abductor on Roblox, groomed, and then trafficked.⁶

The Federal Multidistrict Litigation

On December 12, 2025, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated the growing number of federal family lawsuits into a single proceeding. The case, In re: Roblox Corporation Child Sexual Exploitation and Assault Litigation (MDL No. 3166), was assigned to Chief Judge Richard Seeborg in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, starting with 31 actions plus dozens of tag-along cases.⁸

By mid-2026, more than 160 cases had been consolidated.¹ In early 2026, Judge Seeborg appointed Alexandra Walsh of Anapol Weiss, Sarah London of Girard Sharp LLP, and Bryan Aylstock of Aylstock Witkin Kreis & Overholtz as co-lead plaintiffs’ counsel, with an executive committee drawn from firms including Weitz & Luxenberg, Lieff Cabraser, and Milberg.⁹ The MDL is in its pretrial phase. Discovery is underway, no settlements have been reached, and the judge has indicated an intent to appoint a settlement master.

State Attorney General and Local Lawsuits

Six state attorneys general have brought enforcement actions, each grounded in state consumer protection statutes.

Louisiana (August 14, 2025). Filed by Attorney General Liz Murrill in the 21st Judicial District Court, alleging Roblox distributes child sexual abuse material and serves as an “unchecked forum” for predators. The state seeks restitution and damages.⁴
Kentucky (October 7, 2025). Filed by Attorney General Russell Coleman in Madison Circuit Court under the Kentucky Consumer Protection Act. The state seeks penalties of up to $2,000 per willful violation.⁵
Texas (November 7, 2025). Filed by Attorney General Ken Paxton in King County under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, alleging Roblox profited from a virtual currency system that incentivizes predatory behavior.¹⁰
Florida (December 11, 2025). Filed by Attorney General James Uthmeier in Baker County, alleging five violations of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, including that adults can pose as children and access adult-themed content.¹¹
Nebraska (March 4, 2026). Filed by Attorney General Mike Hilgers in Adams County District Court under the Nebraska Consumer Protection Act, alleging the platform hosts explicit and violent content accessible to children as young as six.¹²
Alabama (settled April 2026). Attorney General Steve Marshall resolved the matter without filing suit; details below.¹³

Los Angeles County filed its own civil suit on February 19, 2026, in Los Angeles Superior Court, alleging violations of California’s Unfair Competition Law and False Advertising Law. The county noted that over 40% of Roblox’s user base is under 13 and is seeking injunctive relief plus civil penalties of up to $2,500 per violation per day.¹⁴

The Alabama Settlement

The first resolution came on April 21, 2026, when Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall announced a $12.2 million settlement paid over four years to the state’s Safe School Initiative Fund.¹⁵ The deal was reached in lieu of a formal lawsuit and structured as a voluntary compliance agreement rather than a consent decree. Roblox denied any liability or violation of law.¹⁶

The settlement also required specific product changes with near-term deadlines. By May 1, 2026, all users must verify their age through facial estimation or government ID before accessing chat features. Users under 16 are restricted to screened, age-appropriate content by default. Private chats between adults and children under 16 are blocked unless the adult sits on a parent-approved “trusted friends” list, and messages between adults and minors must remain unencrypted. By July 2026, parents of child accounts were to receive tools for monitoring chats, spending, and online activity. Roblox must publish annual transparency reports on moderation and safety, and violating the terms can trigger up to $5 million in additional penalties.¹⁵

The Fight Over Forced Arbitration

Roblox is trying to move the family lawsuits out of court and into private arbitration, citing a clause in its terms of service that it has called “consumer friendly and cost effective.” In February 2026, hundreds of parents signed an open letter urging Roblox to stop pushing “vulnerable, sexually abused and exploited children into secret arbitration.”¹⁷

Trial courts have started blocking those motions. In a February 2026 ruling, the San Mateo County Superior Court held that the federal Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act applies to these claims, rejecting Roblox’s argument that the 2022 law reaches only workplace disputes. The court read the statute’s language as “expansive” and found that claims against an online platform can relate to a sexual assault dispute even when a third party is the actual perpetrator.¹⁸

Roblox is appealing. In a related case, Uhl v. Roblox, a Ninth Circuit panel heard oral arguments on May 22, 2026 on a narrower question: whether Roblox forfeited arbitration by first moving to dismiss on the merits under Section 230. Judge Jennifer Sung told Roblox’s attorney, “You can’t go to the court and ask the court for a merits ruling and then say we were never supposed to be in court in the first place.”¹⁹ A ruling is not expected until at least late 2026. For comparison, Meta and Snap have voluntarily declined to enforce their arbitration clauses in comparable child-predator cases.¹⁷

The Section 230 Defense

Roblox has also relied on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which generally shields online platforms from liability for user-posted content. In a video game addiction case, Angelilli v. Activision Blizzard, Inc. (N.D. Ill., April 2025), a federal court dismissed all nineteen claims against Roblox and other defendants, holding that Section 230 bars claims based on the “social aspects” of user-generated content and that the First Amendment separately protects the platform’s own creative elements such as characters, skins, and game-creation tools.²⁰

Plaintiffs in the sexual exploitation cases argue Section 230 is beside the point because their claims target Roblox’s own design decisions, its failure to implement safety features, and its alleged misrepresentations about safety, not the content posted by any user. Plaintiffs’ co-lead counsel Alexandra Walsh has argued that the companies are “grossly-overinterpreting” the statute.²¹

Roblox’s Response

The company disputes the allegations. Responding to Los Angeles County’s lawsuit, Roblox said it “strongly” disputes the claims and is “built with safety at its core.”²² Answering Louisiana’s suit, a spokesperson said Roblox uses “substantial resources, including advanced technology and 24/7 human moderation” to detect inappropriate content and behavior.⁴

CEO David Baszucki, after meeting with members of Congress in July 2025, said Roblox has been “innovating on safety for almost 20 years” and called the platform “the safest place for anyone on the internet.” He pointed to AI-based age estimation, a “trusted connections” feature, and filtering of all text and voice on the platform, and expressed support for federal child-safety bills including the Take It Down Act and COPPA 2.0.²³ Nebraska’s complaint called the December 2025 rollout of an AI-powered age verification system “far too little and far too late” and alleged the system had “glaring and dangerous” functional failures.²⁴

What’s Next

The MDL keeps growing, with the next case management conference set for spring 2026.¹ The Ninth Circuit’s ruling on arbitration could determine whether hundreds of family claims proceed in open court or behind closed doors. State AG cases in Texas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Nebraska remain active. On May 20, 2026, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and other advocacy groups formally asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Roblox under Section 5 of the FTC Act and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, citing the company’s own estimate that roughly 40% of its more than 130 million daily users are under 13.²⁵ No federal enforcement action has been filed as of mid-2026, and a Roblox spokesperson said the company “strongly disputes these claims.”²⁶

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3
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16
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17
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