Roblox is facing a bipartisan investigation in the United States after the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism raised renewed concerns about child safety on the platform.
Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) announced the investigation in a letter sent to Roblox CEO David Baszucki. The document details a series of allegations and asks the company to provide records and answers to the committee.
You trumpet Roblox as a safe digital playground for children as young as five. But the public record raises serious questions about this promise of safety. Over the past decade, police have arrested numerous individuals for committing serious acts of violence and harm against children they met via Roblox, including grooming, sexual abuse, kidnapping, rape, and even murder. Roblox is being used to trade child sexual abuse material, participate in sexually explicit (and often violent) virtual “experiences” with children, bribe and extort children into producing explicit content, and lure children into in-person meetings. It is heartbreaking. In 2025, Roblox reported 65,381 instances of suspected child sexual exploitation to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children—more than double what it reported in 2024.
The senators argue that Roblox may be placing revenue and engagement ahead of children’s welfare. Their requests cover the company’s earnings from different age groups, the amount of time users in each age bracket spend on the service, reports involving inappropriate behaviour towards children during 2024 and 2025, and the safeguards currently in place.
The letter also instructs Roblox to preserve records connected with child exploitation and abuse. The company must respond to the committee’s questions and provide the requested documents by 31 August.
The investigation follows years of reports about alleged harm involving the platform. Coverage has included financial exploitation, including the incident highlighted in 2021:
Other allegations have involved sexual exploitation, detailed in-depth by Bloomberg in 2024. Reports have also examined how the service was used to spread far-right extremism to children, alleged connections with real-world violence, and a Missouri cyberstalking case involving threats with murder.
What Roblox has changed
Roblox has repeatedly defended its approach and introduced additional protections over the years. These measures include parental controls and age-locks intended to limit children’s access to unsuitable content.
Those changes have not ended the concerns. The Senate has pointed to the number of suspected child sexual exploitation reports submitted by Roblox to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children as part of the reason for further scrutiny.
The platform’s scale adds to the challenge. In 2024, Roblox averaged more than 80 million daily players worldwide, with approximately 40 per cent aged under 13.
In a statement, Roblox chief safety officer Matt Kaufman said: “Roblox is built on the foundation of safety. We do not compromise on that commitment. We look forward to sharing the facts about how we work to protect children on the platform.”
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