‘It is heartbreaking:’ Not even U.S. senators can take what’s going on with children on Roblox anymore
On Aug. 12, U.S. senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) sent a letter to Roblox Corp. chief executive Dave Baszucki notifying him that the Senate Judiciary Committee had opened an official investigation into the company over “child safety on the Roblox gaming platform.”
The letter states that, despite Roblox‘s presenting itself as a “safe digital playground for children,” the “public record raises serious questions about this promise of safety.”
Over the past decade, police have arrested numerous individuals for committing serious acts of violence and harm against children they met via Roblox, including grooming, sexual abuse, kidnapping, rape, and even murder. Roblox is being used to trade child sexual abuse material, participate in sexually explicit (and often violent) virtual “experiences” with children, bribe and extort children into producing explicit content, and lure children into in-person meetings.
“It is heartbreaking,” the senators wrote, adding that in 2025 alone, 65,381 reports of “suspected child sexual exploitation” were made by Roblox Corp. to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which, as they explain, is double the figure from 2024.
The senators go on to accuse Roblox Corp. of “prioritiz[ing] revenue and engagement metrics over the safety and well-being of our children,” which thus “warrants congressional scrutiny.”
The investigation explicitly orders Roblox Corp. to “preserve all records, in any format and wherever located, in connection with child safety, child sexual or physical abuse, child bullying, or child financial exploitation.”
“Let us be clear: children on your platform are hurting. Congress will not look the other way,” the senators conclude.
Roblox is slowly but surely getting itself into a world of trouble, not least because of its chief executive’s public statements and apparent lack of direct action. The State of Louisiana is also currently investigating Roblox Corporation, as is LA County, while it’s in the sights of Florida’s attorney general, too.
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Now, it seems things have escalated to a federal level, though a congressional investigation is by no means on equal footing with criminal proceedings.
As for Baszucki, he went on record to say that Roblox could be turned into a dating platform, despite the fact that the vast majority of its users are underage and, more specifically, under the age of 13. He also stated that gambling could be a fun activity for children on the platform if done right, whatever that means.
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