Following a civil subpoena earlier this year, Attorney General James Uthmeier announced Monday that he is issuing a criminal subpoena to Roblox, an online video game.
According to Uthmeier’s office, “multiple investigations have revealed that sexual predators are using Roblox to access, communicate with, and groom minors.”
“Roblox profited off of our kids while exposing them to the most dangerous of harms. They enabled our kids to be abused,” Uthmeier said in a video posted to his social media. “Companies like Roblox have become breeding grounds for predators to get to and have access to our kids.”
‘They enabled our kids to be abused,’ Uthmeier alleges.
The attorney general said there have been reports of predators using Robux, the in-game currency, “to bribe minors into sending sexually explicit images of themselves.”
According to the attorney general, victims accuse Roblox of failing to implement safety measures and failing to warn parents of the dangers the game could pose to their children.
In a response to the Phoenix, Roblox said, “We share Attorney General Uthmeier’s commitment to keeping kids safe and we will continue to assist his office in their investigations.”
“We have a strong record of working with law enforcement and investing in advanced safety systems to help protect our users and remove bad actors. To safeguard users, we prohibit the sharing of images and videos in the chat, use filters designed to block the exchange of personal information, and we are working to implement age estimation for all users accessing chat features,” Roblox continued.
The attorney general said there have been “troubling allegations” that the game has been negligent in verifying users’ ages and failed in content moderation.
“These criminal subpoenas will enable us to gather more information for our prosecutors about the criminal activity taking place on Roblox’ platform as well as evidence on the predators that are out there and the victims that are abused,” Uthmeier said.
Uthmeier appeared on Fox & Friends First Monday to talk about the launch of the investigation.
“Here in Florida we’ve arrested over 1,000 child predators just this year, and many of these investigations lead right back to Roblox,” Uthmeier said.
Predators often pose as young people and “engage in long-term dialogue” with the minors, “and in the worst of cases, we’ve seen actual physical abuse,” Uthmeier added.
In 2023 and 2024, Roblox was included on the National Center on Sexual Exploitation Dirty Dozen list.
The list, since 2013, calls out “mainstream entities for facilitating, enabling, and even profiting from sexual abuse and exploitation.”
In 2024, other companies on the list included Reddit, Discord, Spotify, Telegram, LinkedIn, Meta, Apple, Cash App, GitHub, and Cloudfare. A federal law, the Communications Decency Act Section 230, provides legal immunity for for technology companies for material posted by users.
The center did not release a list of companies for 2025; instead, it showcased victims it said were denied justice as a result of the federal law and called for its repeal.
“While no system is perfect, our trained teams and automated tools continuously monitor communications to detect and remove harmful content. We are committed to leading the industry in safety and transparency,” Roblox concluded its statement.
Earlier this year
In April, Uthmeier requested information from Roblox, such as how many of the game’s users are under the age of 16, marketing materials that relate to suitability for children, documents showing parental controls, and documents showing steps Roblox has taken to ensure children do not see mature content.
Uthmeier’s April subpoena also sought communications with the National Center relating to Floridians and communication with Florida users reporting abuse.
Uthmeier told Fox & Friends that after the April subpoena, “what we found is evidence that they’ve been operating in a careless way. They know child predators are using the app to go after our kids and they haven’t done enough about it.”
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