At what age should I allow my child to play games online? There are different ways to enhance and manage cubet 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”.
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.
From February to May 2025, law firm Anapol Weiss filed four different lawsuits against Roblox on behalf of children for alleged exploitation by adults. The lawsuit alleges that Roblox connected their daughter with online predators, who sexually exploited her by coercing her to send sexually explicit photos to them on Discord and Snapchat; those corporations were also named in the lawsuit. Other federal governments, such as Coahuila and Nuevo León, sent communications to parents stating that Roblox was being used to extort minors. In December 2025, access to Roblox was blocked in Russia due to it allegedly containing extremist material and “international LGBT propaganda”, with Roskomnadzor saying that the platform was “rife with inappropriate content that can negatively impact the spiritual and moral development of children”. In October 2025, the Attorney General’s Office in Lleida, Catalonia, Spain, launched a series of investigations following several reports from parents whose children had been harassed through Roblox. On February 3, the Egyptian government decided to completely ban the platform following a decision by the Supreme Council for Media Regulation (SCMR), which had determined that the platform’s content posed significant risks to minors over “violent content”.
The same study also took notice of the genre of “hood games”, in which players roleplay as gangsters in low-class neighborhoods, for promoting prejudice and stereotypes against African Americans and those of lower socioeconomic status. However, these restrictions did not apply to advergames, leading to further criticism by Truth in Advertising and children’s digital rights organization 5Rights. The woman reported that her character slipped on a puddle and was stuck on the ground, at which point several other players roleplayed sexually assaulting her. One controversial invitee was “TheOfficiaITeddy” who, according to IGN, was involved in making games that “featured romantic, dating, and even sex-themed content” with his most popular game having hundreds of millions of plays. Bloomberg Businessweek reported the existence of forums on the dark web sharing tips on how to encourage children to contact predators offsite without detection by chat filters through the use of intentional typos and emojis.
For younger children, opt for games that don’t require online interaction with others. Playing the game with them or watching gameplay videos together can also give you a clear idea of its content and help you decide if it’s a good fit for their age and maturity level. Research the games they want to play, checking ratings, and reading content descriptions provided on platforms like the ESRB or PEGI.
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.
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 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.

• No matter how great the gameplay is, if the community is known for harassment, many potential players will simply stay away.
• Take time to set these limits, ensuring that you have control over what’s purchased and who can connect with your child.
• Los Angeles County filed a lawsuit against Roblox two days later, claiming the platform “makes children easy prey for pedophiles” and “fails to implement reasonable and readily available safety measures”.
• Department of Justice nor any of its components operate, control, are responsible for, or necessarily endorse, this Web site (including, without limitation, its content, technical infrastructure, and policies, and any services or tools provided).
• The law firm stated it was “investigating hundreds of similar cases” and intended to file more lawsuits in the subsequent months.
• Some found that the platform made it very easy to purchase microtransactions, leading to numerous instances where children have spent large sums of money on the platform without parents’ knowledge.
• 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.

Positive playing experiences and player tools go hand-in-hand.

Roblox had previously clarified to the Federal Government of São Paulo that its monetization model was not abusive and that minors had previously consented to the platform monetizing their content. Meanwhile, in 2024, the Mexico City Cyber Police and the Secretariat of Citizen Security (SCC) also reported that Roblox was being used to promote criminal activity such as the distribution of drugs and illicit substances to minors in the Mexican capital. In the same month, Sarah El Haïry, the High Commissioner for Children (Haute-commissaire à l’Enfance), publicly stated that issues such as pedophilia and sexual harassment on the platform were causing concern among French regulators. In January 2026, the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) launched investigations to probe whether the platform was safe in the European Union after multiple reports and lawsuits claiming that the platform was a danger to minors. In February 2026, the Egyptian Supreme Council for Media Regulation passed a statement banning access to Roblox, with concerns being “internet and social media use among children”. In addition, members of Bahrain’s parliament also began drafting a bill to ban Roblox in the country following concerns about child safety.
Turkey would ban the platform in August 2024 citing concerns that the content on the platform enabled child abuse. During the same period, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Oman banned access to the platform in the sultanate after multiple reports of inappropriate content being distributed by Roblox to minors. Authorities in the city of Surabaya also imposed local bans on Roblox in primary and secondary schools, citing multiple incidents where sexual predators had harassed minors through the platform, following requests from the local Ministry of Education.

Online Gaming Safety: 9 in 10 Gamers Wouldn’t Let Their Kid Play

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.

Early Childhood

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.
Of course, implementing this kind of system isn’t plug-and-play. “A safer user experience leads to more enjoyment, stronger communities, and ultimately, more engagement and revenue,” he adds. Apostolos explains that smarter workflows, automated and tiered by severity, allow platforms to respond faster and more fairly. AI can also adapt to evolving language, subcultures, and slang much better than rule-based systems.” However, words and isolated features aren’t enough if enforcement is inconsistent or a company’s stance isn’t communicated to the player base.

Game Tools

Nearly 59% of players mute or block toxic users, 30% actively avoid certain communities, and 28% quit mid-game. Alarmingly, more than half (52%) of women said they stopped playing games because of harassment or toxic communities. According to the Anti-Defamation League’s 2023 report, 76% of adult gamers reported similar harassment experiences. Our survey revealed that nearly 78% of gamers have experienced some form of harassment online. Our research highlights gamers’ critical challenges and demonstrates why gaming platforms need stronger moderation efforts. We surveyed 2,000 American gamers aged to understand how toxicity impacts gaming.
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.

• This announcement was met with major backlash from parents, creators, safety advocates, and many online communities who feared it would put children at a greater risk.
• User-generated content is a huge competitive advantage.
• 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.
• Games downloaded from shady sources can contain harmful content or malware, so stick to platforms that provide clear content ratings and descriptions.
• We guard against gamers attempting to move the conversation away from the protected gaming platform to discord or other messaging apps.

Safer gaming is a cornerstone of the digital safety movement. Here’s how to achieve it

First, ethically, it’s alarming that online games often have teen or even “Everyone” ratings – environments where children face such hostility. The kinds of slurs, sexual comments, and hate imagery that proliferate in some games are absolutely not what most parents want their kids to witness or endure. Recent studies show that three-quarters of teens and pre-teens (ages 10–17) experienced harassment in online games, a sharp rise from the previous year. When even seasoned adult gamers are wary of exposing children to the standard multiplayer experience, it’s a damning indictment of the status quo. We surveyed 2,000 gamers in the United States to understand how toxicity impacts online multiplayer games. As they get older, introduce more interactive games gradually, always with parental controls enabled to manage content, communication, and time spent gaming.

Financial exploitation

Following the public backlash, senior Australian government officials called meetings with Roblox, where they indicated that if the company is unable to neutralize cases of child sexual abuse on its platform, it could face fines of A$49.5 million. In September, Roblox announced it will collaborate with International Age Rating Coalition to assign age ratings to individual games, complementing Roblox’s own ratings. Players linked with a trusted connection would have chat filters removed between each other, specifically in hopes that users would be less likely to leave Roblox for platforms they did not moderate, but could only be accessed after using an AI-based age verification system using facial recognition. They also reimplemented “experience guidelines” as “content labels” that parents could use with parental controls settings to regulate the content their child was allowed to see. On November 18, 2024, Roblox announced that they would be implementing new safety features for children under 13 set to take effect in the first quarter of 2025. Developers would also need to designate their games as meant for users under 13, otherwise their games would no longer be accessible to those users.
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.
Since 1998, NCMEC has operated the CyberTipline, a place where the public and electronic service providers can report suspected online and offline child sexual exploitation. On the same day, Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird filed a lawsuit against Roblox Corporation for allegedly failing to protect children from exploitation. On November 6, 2025, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against the Roblox Corporation, alleging that the company misleadingly promoted its platform as a safe environment for children.
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.