Online child safety campaigners call for US inquiry into Roblox

Online child safety campaigners, including Jonathan Haidt, the bestselling author on social media’s mental health impacts, called on the Trump administration to investigate Roblox, the rapidly growing gaming and chat platform used daily by 150 million people, including many children under 13.

The groups — Haidt’s Anxious Generation Movement, Fairplay, and the rightwing anti-pornography National Center on Sexual Exploitation — allege Roblox’s design and business model conflict with children’s developmental needs.

They filed a dossier with the Federal Trade Commission criticizing Roblox’s “engagement-maximising design features,” alleging its voice and text chat features “repeatedly expose children to sexual content and harmful adults, resulting in sexual exploitation and abuse,” and claiming that its in-game currency, Robux, monetizes children’s “lack of impulse control.”

Roblox’s 150 million daily users include millions of young children as young as 5 who, using block-like avatars, play 7 million user-created games. They can chat with others based on age brackets: 9-year-olds can chat with 16-year-olds; 13-year-olds can chat with 17-year-olds. The most popular game, Brookhaven, lets players “own and live in amazing houses, drive cool vehicles and explore the city,” but the platform has also hosted games with sexually explicit content, violence and horror.

The investigation request accuses Roblox of “committing unfair trade practices and acts at the expense of children’s safety and wellbeing.” FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson, a consumer watchdog, has been outspoken about child safety online. Last year the FTC held a seminar titled “The attention economy: how big tech firms exploit children and hurt families.”

Roblox, based in San Mateo, California, has grown rapidly, with revenue jumping 36% to $4.9 billion last year, driven by sales of Robux. Game creators earned $1.5 billion.

Haidt, author of “The Anxious Generation,” argues smartphones contributed to a global epidemic of adolescent mental illness. Last year he highlighted Roblox when warning “how the monetisation strategies of multiplayer games have changed, incentivising companies to put kids into harmful situations.”

Casey Mock, senior policy director of the Anxious Generation Movement, said with estimates that 40% of Roblox’s daily users are under 13, “it has obligations to families that go well beyond what its terms of service may say – an obligation, at a minimum, to design a safe product. The evidence is clearly presented in this complaint that Roblox has consistently chosen profit over that obligation.”

The dossier alleges recent changes to Roblox’s text and voice chat capabilities have not eliminated adult-child contact and these features remain a source of harm. Roblox recently introduced facial age estimation and other age checks, and a system called Sentinel for “real-time child endangerment detection.”

The campaigners’ action is the latest sign of consumer and political backlash against popular online platforms that generate billions for tech companies. Last month a California jury ruled Meta and YouTube designed addictive products harming young people, while Republican legislators in Washington push forward tougher online child protection legislation.

“Roblox claims it is safe and developmentally appropriate for children,” said Fairplay’s policy counsel, Haley Hinkle. “Our filing shows that that is simply not true. And given that over 30 million kids under age 13 are reportedly daily users of the platform, our request for an investigation is urgent. The FTC has the authority to stop Roblox from raking in billions of dollars in profit every year at the expense of our children’s safety and healthy development. We call on the commission to investigate Roblox’s unfair trade practices and acts, and to scrutinise the platform’s compliance with children’s online privacy law.”

A Roblox spokesperson said the company “strongly disputes” the campaigners’ claims and that its platform is “designed to provide a positive, healthy and enjoyable experience – we build for fun and connection, not short-term engagement.”

The spokesperson added: “While no system can be perfect, we have a set of safeguards designed to support a safe and civil environment, and clear policies for game creators that require fair treatment of players.”

The spokesperson noted that no one is required to buy Robux, and in the first quarter of 2026, only 1.4% of users were payers. Direct chat is off by default for players under 9, and voice chat is restricted to age-verified players 13 or older.