Los Angeles County Sues Roblox Over Child Safety Failures in Growing Legal Battle

Roblox is in legal hot water. Again.

Los Angeles County filed a civil lawsuit against Roblox Corp. on 19 February 2026, becoming the first California government body to take the platform to court over child safety concerns. The 82-page complaint, filed in LA Superior Court by County Counsel Dawyn R. Harrison on behalf of the People of the State of California, makes for grim reading. It accuses Roblox of operating what it calls a "largely unsupervised online world" where adults are able to pose as children with little to no friction, and where age-inappropriate sexual content is far too accessible.

"This is not about a minor lapse in safety," Harrison said. "It is about a company that gives pedophiles powerful tools to prey on innocent and unsuspecting children."

LA County Board Chair Hilda L. Solis was equally direct: "Roblox has a responsibility to keep kids safe, but instead it has allowed its platform to become a place where children can be exposed to grooming and exploitation."

The county is seeking injunctive relief, abatement, and civil penalties of up to $2,500 per day for each violation of California's Unfair Competition Law and False Advertising Law. It also wants Roblox to foot the legal bill.

What the lawsuit actually says

The core accusation is straightforward. Roblox markets itself as a safe, family-friendly gaming platform while allegedly doing the bare minimum to keep it that way. Over 40% of its more than 151 million daily active users are under 13, and nearly 75% of US children aged 9-12 reportedly play the game. That's an enormous audience of vulnerable users.

Assistant County Counsel Scott Kuhn laid out the problem in blunt terms: "I can sign up, say I'm 12 years old, create an avatar for myself, and start playing the game, and start interacting with 9-year-olds, 10-year-olds, 12-year-olds."

The suit claims Roblox has failed to put proper age verification in place, that its moderation is inadequate, and that its default communication settings leave children exposed. "These fixes are obvious, easy, and long overdue," the complaint states. Beyond the harm to children, LA County argues it has had to divert public resources, including law enforcement, child protective services, and mental health support, to deal with the fallout from exploitation cases tied to the platform. Essentially, the county is saying Roblox's negligence is costing taxpayers money.

Roblox pushes back

Roblox disputes all of it. The company said it will defend itself "vigorously," pointing to its automated content monitoring systems, a ban on image sharing through chat, and facial age-estimation technology it began requiring for chat users in January 2026. "There is no finish line when it comes to protecting kids, and while no system can be perfect, our commitment to safety never ends," a spokesperson said.

To be fair, Roblox has made some moves. Since mid-2025, it banned and disabled unrated games on the platform. It also introduced age-based chat grouping, meaning players are supposed to only be able to chat with others in a similar age range. The catch is that those facial recognition tools have reportedly returned inaccurate results, which rather undermines the whole thing.

This is far from the first time

This lawsuit doesn't exist in a vacuum. The legal pile-on against Roblox has been building for years.

It first grabbed wide attention in October 2022, when a lawsuit filed in San Francisco alleged that the platform served as a meeting point between an underage girl in California and multiple adult men, eventually leading to a real-world encounter involving underage drinking, prescription drug use, and the sharing of sexually explicit photos. Within two months of that filing, the US Congress launched inquiries into online extremism across more than a dozen game developers, with Roblox Corp. among them.

Things escalated significantly in 2025. Louisiana filed suit in August, with Attorney General Liz Murrill labelling the platform "a perfect place for paedophiles." Kentucky followed in October. Texas came next in November, with Attorney General Ken Paxton calling it a "breeding ground for predators." Georgia and Florida have also taken legal action. Nearly 80 individual family lawsuits have since been consolidated into a federal multidistrict litigation case in San Francisco.

The LA County filing is now the latest in that chain, and notably the first from a California government entity.

Countries have started taking action too. Algeria, China, Egypt, Greece, Guatemala, Iraq, and Jordan are among those that have banned or blocked access to Roblox entirely.

Roblox executives have argued in the past that many of the claims stem from incidents five years ago. LA County's position is that the danger is current and ongoing. With half a million children in LA County alone reportedly on the platform almost every day, according to county officials, it's a hard argument to dismiss.

Whether this lawsuit produces any meaningful change remains to be seen. What's clear is that the legal pressure on Roblox is not letting up.