(June 10): Myra’s daughter got a Roblox account when she was eight. For more than a decade, the immersive gaming platform had advertised itself as a safe place for kids to play and, during the pandemic, there weren’t many other options.
Myra herself had grown up trawling the chatrooms on AOL Instant Messenger but knew it was a different internet era and decided to be more stringent with her daughter’s safety. She reviewed Roblox’s website and checked various “parental control” boxes, according to a September lawsuit she filed in California.
One day Myra got a call from her daughter’s school. An administrator explained that the FBI had intercepted a man in Australia, who posed as a child on Roblox, from meeting up with her daughter in person. He had sent her messages “describing graphic sexual acts he intended to do to her,” according to the complaint filed by Myra, who declined to share her last name to protect her daughter’s privacy.
Today, Myra is one of hundreds of people suing Roblox over claims the US$40 billion gaming giant falsely advertised its safeguards against predators. It is part of a widespread effort to hold the company responsible for paedophiles finding and grooming victims on games primarily played by kids.
But if Roblox gets its way, those families might never see their day in court. The company’s terms of use state that, by signing up, Roblox subscribers forfeit their ability to pursue lawsuits in open court. Instead, claims are to be resolved in closed-door arbitration by private judges.
“They just want to put everything behind the scenes,” said Myra. “They don’t want everybody to know what actually is going on.”
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Roblox is facing more than 150 child-safety suits consolidated in federal court, in addition to scores of others in state courts. In court filings, Roblox has described its arbitration agreement as “consumer friendly and cost effective".
Messaging app Discord is also named as a defendant in Myra’s suit and others because the platform is where many adults who meet children on Roblox allegedly prefer to converse with them. Discord, too, has an arbitration clause in its user agreement.
Roblox didn’t respond to a request for comment. Since 2024, Roblox has implemented dozens of safety changes, including measures restricting young children from communicating with others. The company also has expanded parental controls.
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A Discord representative declined to comment on legal matters but said the company is “deeply committed to user safety". The chat app touts “a combination of advanced technology and trained safety teams to proactively find and remove content that violates our policies” and says it maintains “strong systems intended to prevent the spread of sexual exploitation and grooming on our platform”.
Arbitration has become a staple of corporate dispute resolution over the last 15 years. But the fight over whether young gamers and their parents can be forced into arbitration is fraught because of pushback starting in the #MeToo era against allowing companies to handle sexual misconduct claims out of the public eye.
Congress gave victims of workplace misconduct new power when it passed the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act in 2022. There’s an ongoing push to expand the arbitration ban to consumers, including minors, who file sexual exploitation complaints.
Arbitration is favoured over the public court system by many companies because it’s considered more efficient than putting claims before a judge and jury. But the streamlined arbitration process has also faced criticism that it doesn’t have safeguards meant to ensure fairness.
“The companies against whom the cases are filed get to pick the forced arbitration provider so they have a lot of control over the process,” said Julia Duncan, director of government affairs at the American Association for Justice, a plaintiffs’ lawyers nonprofit advocacy group.
In February, hundreds of parents signed a letter to Roblox’s board asking the company to stop “improper and shameful attempts to force these vulnerable, sexually abused and exploited children into secret arbitration proceedings. These children deserve their day in court”.
Meta Platforms Inc and Snap Inc — which also face claims about predators on their platforms — have chosen not to enforce their arbitration clauses.
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So far, several judges have blocked Roblox and Discord from moving sexual predator claims into arbitration, but the companies are appealing those rulings — making it unlikely the issue will be resolved before the end of the year.
David Horton, a law professor at the University of California in Davis who studies arbitration, said the parents battling with Roblox and Discord have “persuasive arguments” that may lead to a new precedent limiting the scope of arbitration for alleged victims of sexual misconduct.
Steven, a father who claims his 13-year-old son was “groomed” while playing on Roblox, said his lawsuit has been in limbo since last year.
“So much has been taken from him already,” said Steven, who declined to give his last name to protect his child’s privacy. “Why can’t he have his day in court?”
Uploaded by Arion Yeow
