Snohomish County family sues gaming platforms Roblox, Discord

SNOHOMISH COUNTY, Wash. - A local family in Snohomish County is suing Roblox and Discord, accusing the platforms of allowing a child predator to target their teen daughter.

Roblox is a gaming platform that allows video game users to play a wide selection of games known as "experiences."

There are nearly 90 million active daily users with around 40% of players under 13 years old.

Discord is a popular communication app among gamers that allows players to communicate in real time.

What they're saying:

"In about 2023, the child met an adult predator who actually posed as a fellow child, who groomed and manipulated that young girl on the Roblox platform," Attorney Sara Beller said.

Beller is with The Dolman Law Group representing the local family. She says after the predator targeted the young girl on Roblox and continued the grooming on Discord.

"That also presented itself as a safe and trusted platform, on that platform the predator sent the graphic messages and manipulated the girl to send sexually explicit images of herself," Beller said.

Beller alleges the communication went on for months until the 13 year-old’s father caught his daughter sending sexually explicit pictures to an adult man posing as a peer.

The Dolman Law Group says the teen has been traumatized from the experience.

Attorneys say the family did not file a police report at the time of the incident, saying the family was too emotional to engage with law enforcement. But they say it does not diminish the seriousness of the incident, and it does not prevent them from seeking accountability through the civil process.

Beller claims Roblox and Discord do not have effective protections in place from keeping predators out. Beller also alleges the companies are putting profit over the safety of the most vulnerable.

Dig deeper:

Dolman Law Group says after their own internal investigation they uncovered hundreds of user-generated worlds on Roblox titled "Diddy Party," "Survive Diddy," "JeffEpsteinSupporter" and "Escape to Epstein Island."

Beller is accusing Roblox of not catching "experiences" that expose kids to sexual and inappropriate themes and conversations.

"They are just now boasting safety measures that they have implemented very, very recently, most likely in response to lawsuits like this one," Beller said.

The law firm is seeking unspecified monetary damages for the family, but they also say they want systemic change at Discord and Roblox. 

"If Roblox is going to continue to hold itself out as safe, they need to stop predators that come on their platform and pretend to be children," Beller said.

But parental responsibility is also a key issue, and if parents are letting young kids on these platforms, FOX 13 asked if they should also be accountable for keeping their kids safe. In response, Beller argued that the companies are misrepresenting the safety of their online platforms.

"Roblox needs to inform parents about the dangers of their platform," Beller said.

The other side:

A Roblox spokesperson sent FOX 13 this statement:

"We are deeply troubled by any incident that endangers our users. Roblox aims to set the bar for online safety, which is why our policies are purposely stricter than those found on many other platforms. We limit chat for younger users, don't allow user-to-user image sharing, and have filters designed to block the sharing of personal information.

"Our Community Standards explicitly prohibit the portrayal of sensitive real-world events, and we take swift action against any content or users found in violation. The majority of these "real-world event" experiences are quickly removed from the platform or reported. Unlike our most popular games that have tens of thousands of concurrent players, these violations typically involve a small number of users and are not found organically on the platform.

"We understand that no system is perfect, which is why we are constantly working to improve our safety tools and platform restrictions. We have launched 145 new safety initiatives this year alone. We also recognize this is an industry-wide issue and are working to develop collaborative standards and solutions. For instance, Roblox is implementing an industry-leading policy requiring sophisticated facial age estimation for all users who access our communications features, helping prevent older users from contacting children inappropriately.

"We encourage anyone to report content or behavior that may violate our Community Standards using our Report Abuse feature. We partner with law enforcement and leading child safety and mental health organizations worldwide to combat the sexual exploitation of children and are a founding member of the Tech Coalition's Lantern project and the nonprofit Robust Open Online Safety Tools (ROOST)."

Discord also sent FOX 13 the following statement:

"Discord is deeply committed to safety and we require all users to be at least 13 to use our platform. We use a combination of advanced technology and trained safety teams to proactively find and remove content that violates our policies. We maintain strong systems to prevent the spread of sexual exploitation and grooming on our platform and also work with other technology companies and safety organizations to improve online safety across the internet."

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