U.S. Senate Launches Investigation into Roblox for Child Safety Concerns

Roblox is once again facing scrutiny over child safety concerns, as the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism has launched a bipartisan investigation into the platform.

In a letter addressed to Roblox CEO David Baszucki from Senators Josh Hawley and Dick Durbin, the investigation is announced alongside a critical review of Roblox’s history. The letter states:

You promote Roblox as a safe digital playground for children as young as five. However, the public record raises significant doubts about this claim. Over the past decade, law enforcement has arrested numerous individuals for committing serious acts of violence and harm against children they encountered on Roblox, including grooming, sexual abuse, kidnapping, rape, and even murder. Roblox is being exploited for trading child sexual abuse material, engaging in sexually explicit (and often violent) virtual “experiences” with children, coercing and extorting children into producing explicit content, and luring them into in-person meetings. It is deeply troubling. In 2025, Roblox reported 65,381 instances of suspected child sexual exploitation to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children—more than double the number reported in 2024.

The letter further asserts that “Roblox appears to prioritize revenue and engagement metrics over the safety and well-being of our children, and the alleged criminal activity on Roblox warrants congressional scrutiny.” The company has been instructed to preserve all records related to child exploitation and abuse and must respond to a series of questions and provide specific documents requested by the committee by August 31. These inquiries include details about Roblox’s revenue from different age groups, the amount of time users of various ages spend on the platform, the number of accounts reported for inappropriate behavior toward children in 2024 and 2025, and the measures in place to protect young users.

This investigation is not unexpected. Roblox has been in the spotlight multiple times each year for at least the last six years due to reports and allegations of the platform being used to harm children. Issues have ranged from financial exploitation, as highlighted in reports from 2021, to sexual exploitation, which was thoroughly examined in 2024. There have also been claims of Roblox being a vehicle for spreading far-right extremism to children, connections to real-world violence, and even murder.

Roblox has issued numerous statements (not all of which have been particularly convincing) in an effort to counter these accusations and has implemented various changes to its platform over the years, including enhanced parental controls and age restrictions to shield young users from harmful content. However, these measures have not fully addressed the alarming incidents occurring on Roblox, especially considering the number of reports to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children cited by the Senate. In 2024, Roblox averaged over 80 million players daily worldwide, with approximately 40 percent of them under the age of 13.

“Roblox is built on the foundation of safety,” stated Roblox’s chief safety officer Matt Kaufman. “We do not compromise on that commitment. We look forward to sharing the facts about how we work to protect children on the platform.”