US Senate Subcommittee Launches Inquiry Into Roblox Over Alleged Child Safety Failures

The US Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism has opened a formal investigation into Roblox Corporation amid growing concerns that the platform is failing to adequately protect child users.

Senators Josh Hawley and Dick Durbin, who led the inquiry, wrote to Roblox CEO David Baszucki requesting nearly 30 categories of records and data related to child safety, sexual or physical abuse, bullying, and financial exploitation. The company was given a deadline of August 31, 2026, to deliver the requested materials.

The committee specifically asked for case counts and details for 2023, 2024 and 2025 relating to reports “concerning sexual exploitation, predation, or abuse of users under 18,” explanations of how Roblox handles those reports, and how many accounts were reported for such behaviors during those years.

“You trumpet Roblox as a safe digital playground for children as young as five. But the public record raises serious questions about this promise of safety,” the senators wrote, citing a decade of law-enforcement arrests tied to grooming and other violent crimes after offenders met victims on the platform.

The letter highlights that Roblox reported more than 65,000 suspected child exploitation cases to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) in 2025 — more than double the number reported in 2024 — and alleges the platform has been used to trade child sexual abuse material, stage sexually explicit (and sometimes violent) virtual experiences, extort minors into producing explicit content, and lure children into in-person meetings.

Roblox Investigation Begins, Following Child Safety Concerns 2

Roblox's Chief Safety Officer, Matt Kaufman, responded in a statement to PC Gamer: “The platform is built on the foundation of safety. We do not compromise on that commitment, and we look forward to sharing the facts about how we work to protect children on the platform.”

The investigation follows legal and regulatory actions in the US and abroad: Louisiana and Los Angeles County have filed lawsuits alleging child endangerment, and Australian authorities have raised similar concerns on behalf of parents and carers.

Roblox has already rolled out safety measures in response to criticism, including blocking direct messaging for users under 13, introducing global facial-recognition checks for certain accounts, adding a “sensitive issues” content tag for its experiences feature, and strengthening moderation policies and enforcement.

Roblox remains a massive global platform: in 2024 it averaged more than 80 million daily players worldwide, roughly 40% of whom were under 13 — a scale that underscores why regulators and parents are pushing for stronger protections. The Senate inquiry will examine whether Roblox’s policies and actions are sufficient and whether further legislative or regulatory steps are warranted.