Los Angeles County sues Roblox alleging the gaming platform fails to guard kids

The County of Los Angeles filed a lawsuit in opposition to Roblox this week, alleging that the social media gaming platform fails to guard kids from predatory conduct.

Founded in 2004, with headquarters in San Mateo, California, creators name Roblox “an imagination platform,” the place tens of millions of user-created video games can be found for play. It’s not only one sport; there are greater than 11 million totally different video games accessible for gamers on Apple, Amazon, Android, Windows, and Xbox One gadgets.

The platform is used worldwide, and County Assistant Counsel Scott Kuhn mentioned over half 1,000,000 kids in LA County are on it nearly day-after-day, and extra must be performed to guard kids.

“The app platform they have created has been used by predators to take advantage, exploit and send inappropriate material to young children,” Kuhn mentioned.

” … The app needs to have better safeguards and moderation so that people are limited in the number of accounts they can sign up for.”

Roblox has parental controls accessible. “By linking to your child’s account and setting up parental controls, you customize their Roblox experience to reflect what makes sense for your family,” the Roblox web site states. 

In December, the corporate introduced it’s strengthening protections for minors, quickly requiring gamers to make use of AI-powered facial age-estimation expertise to assist confirm their age.

“Roblox is built with safety at its core, and we continue to evolve and strengthen our protections every day. We have advanced safeguards that monitor our platform for harmful content and communications,” Matt Kaufman, Roblox Chief Safety Officer, mentioned in an announcement.

The lawsuit alleges that kids in Los Angeles County have been repeatedly uncovered to sexually specific content material, exploitation and grooming on Roblox.

“Roblox has failed to disclose the dangers of its platform to children, including the high volume of inappropriate material, sexual content, and the risk of sexual predators, including registered sex offenders, using its platform,” the county wrote in a information launch.

Other states suing Roblox embrace Texas, Kentucky and Louisiana. Dozens of U.S. households have additionally filed swimsuit in opposition to the corporate.