‘Playground for predators’: Nebraska AG Mike Hilgers files lawsuit against ROBLOX

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) — Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers is taking a stand Wednesday and calling for a lawsuit against Roblox.

Hilgers officially filed a lawsuit against Roblox for enabling child exploitation and deceptive safety practices.

Roblox is an online game, mostly used by children, where they can develop, program and create their own games to play.

However, Hilgers claims the corporation has knowingly created and maintained an online environment that exposes millions of children to sexual predators, violent content and illegal activity while misleading parents about the platform’s safety.

“Instead of having the guardrails that we would expect from a company that’s focused directly on monetizing children, in some cases as young as four, the guardrails to stop predators are nowhere to be seen,” said Hilgers on Wednesday. “What’s amounted to, I believe, is a playground for predators.”

According to Hilgers, Roblox allows you to create an account anonymously and communicate with other users. He says the barriers to protect young children are not in place, and that’s exactly what sexual predators want.

“Even if someone gets kicked off for doing something wrong, they can literally sign on the same day with a different user name and different email,” Hilgers said. “If you are a predator trying to seek out children and do harm, one of the things you want is anonymity.”

The lawsuit explicitly states that ROBLOX allows as follows.

• Direct contact between minors and adult predators, including through private messaging, voice chat, and user‑generated “experiences.”
• Sexually explicit, violent, and age‑inappropriate content, often accessible to children as young as six.
• Simulated criminal activity, including graphic depictions of violence and other harmful scenarios.
• Inadequate parental controls that are difficult to use, easy to bypass, or misleading in their effectiveness.