Senate Opens Investigation into Roblox Over Child Safety Concerns
- Sagar Mankar
- 5 hours ago
- 2 min read
Two U.S. senators have opened a bipartisan investigation into Roblox over how the platform protects children from predators.
Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) and Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) sent a formal letter to Roblox CEO David Baszucki through the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism.
The letter directs the company to preserve records and hand over detailed documents on its child safety practices by August 31, 2026.
To be clear, this is a congressional oversight probe, not a courtroom lawsuit. The senators aren't suing Roblox. They're demanding answers and accountability, arguing that the company has put revenue and engagement ahead of protecting kids.
In their letter (via Politico), senators said, "Roblox appears to prioritize revenue and engagement metrics over the safety and well-being of our children, and the alleged criminal activity on Roblox warrants congressional scrutiny."
The senators pointed to incidents where adults met kids on the platform and went on to commit grooming, sexual abuse, kidnapping, rape, and even murder.
One number stands out. In 2025, Roblox reported 65,381 cases of suspected child sexual exploitation to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. That's more than double what it reported the year before.
Roblox's Chief Safety Officer Matt Kaufman pushed back on the criticism, saying, "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 protect children on the platform."
This Senate probe is just the latest chapter in a much longer saga of legal and regulatory pressure. Hundreds of private lawsuits from families claiming their children were groomed or exploited on Roblox have already been consolidated into a multidistrict litigation case in federal court in Northern California. Many of these families allege predators posed as other kids, built trust through Roblox chats, then pushed conversations onto apps like Discord or Snapchat.
State attorneys general haven't held back either. Nevada settled for roughly $12 to $12.5 million, along with new requirements around age verification, facial estimation, ID checks, and expanded parental controls. Alabama landed a settlement close to $12.2 million, while West Virginia secured around $11 million. South Dakota's settlement falls somewhere between $8.6 million and $15 million, depending on how the commitments are tallied, and it comes with demands for better age checks and funding for internet crimes units.
States including Oklahoma, Nebraska, Iowa, Texas, Louisiana, and Los Angeles County have filed or pursued similar claims of their own.
Plenty of countries have simply pulled the plug. Algeria banned Roblox in September 2025, citing a lack of protective tools. Egypt followed with a permanent ban in early 2026 over children's internet safety concerns. Iraq banned the platform in October 2025, and Qatar did the same in August 2025, both citing safety and moral concerns. Turkey has restricted access since August 2024. Russia briefly banned Roblox before lifting the restriction in June 2026 once the company rolled out age-based limits, and Kuwait did something similar after Roblox made safety changes.
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