It has been revealed that the state of Kentucky is suing Roblox for allegedly allowing children to be exposed to heinous material including ‘Charlie Kirk assassination simulators’.
The lawsuit was filed by the office of Attorney General Russell Coleman on Monday (October 6) and it argues that the platform lacks proper guardrails to protect children.
It goes on to claim that this creates a ‘playground’ for pedophiles to operate on the gaming platform and meet children.
According to the lawsuit, predators are able to pose as children due to the lack of proper age verification systems in order to lure in potential victims.
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It also argues that minors are being exposed to graphic, violent and sexual material, with one example being ‘assassination simulators’ from the murder of Charlie Kirk last month.
In the lawsuit, it says that ‘children as young as five years old’ are able to ‘access animated bloody depictions of the September 10 shooting’.
Coleman said: “Roblox is designed to allow predators easy access to children and to use Roblox to groom and lure children from virtual contact to physical meetings, leading to harassment, kidnapping, trafficking, violence, and sexual assault of minors, all instances of which these children suffer as a direct result of Defendants’ actions and inactions.”
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Prosecutors wrote: “For years, countless children have been sexually exploited and abused by predators they met on Roblox.”
A mother of three, Courtney Norris, spoke at a press conference alongside Coleman where she said that she had mistaken Roblox as being a safe gaming platform for her children.
She said: “I came to realize, later than I would like to admit, that it actually is the ‘Wild West’ of the internet, targeted at children.”
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Roblox has spoken out in a statement, saying: “We have rigorous safety measures in place from advanced AI models to an expertly trained team of thousands moderating our platform 24/7 for inappropriate content.
“No system is perfect, and our work on safety is never done. We are constantly innovating our safety systems, including adding 100 new safeguards, such as facial age estimation, this year alone.”
The firm went on to say that any users under the age of 13 are not able to directly message other users on Roblox outside of games or experiences.
These users are also not allowed to message anyone during games or experiences either unless the settings are changed under parental controls.