Following the example of Florida, the Texas Attorney General filed a lawsuit against Roblox, the developer of the multiplayer online game creation platform "Roblox", accusing it of "blatant disregard" of the law and exposing children to "pornographic content, exploitation and induction of abuse."
Ken Paxton, a Republican who has served as Texas Attorney General since 2015 and is currently running for the U.S. Senate, announced the lawsuit in a post on the X platform on November 6.In the lawsuit, his office said Roblox "blatantly violated state and federal laws while concealing the risks of the platform from parents."The lawsuit also states that Paxton took this action because "Roblox Corporation has chosen to put pixelated pedophiles and corporate profits over the safety of Texas children."
"We cannot allow platforms like Roblox to continue to become digital playgrounds for predators, sacrificing the well-being of our children to corporate greed," Paxton said. "Roblox must do more to protect children from the sick and twisted perverts hiding behind their screens. Any company that condones child abuse will face the full and ongoing accountability of the law."
A spokesperson for Roblox told the BBC on November 6 that it was "disappointed" to receive the lawsuit, saying that the lawsuit was based entirely on "misrepresentations and sensational accusations."The spokesperson also said that Roblox shares Paxton's commitment to children's safety and has launched a number of measures to remove bad elements from the platform and protect users.
In recent years, "Roblox" has been criticized repeatedly for child safety issues.A Bloomberg investigation in June 2024 found that the platform, whose user group is mainly composed of minors, was rampant with pedophiles. This situation prompted the attorneys general of Florida, Louisiana, Kentucky and other places to file lawsuits.Roblox is currently facing two other known lawsuits, one from Georgia and one from St. Louis, and the company needs to deal with a large amount of litigation paperwork.
