After announcing civil action against Roblox earlier this year, Attorney General James Uthmeier is expanding that scrutiny to a criminal investigation.
“Our initial inquiry, as well as arrests and convictions across the state, have shown that Roblox is a breeding ground for child predators to get on the platform, solicit information, locations, and ultimately abuse kids,” the Republican said on “Fox & Friends First.”
“That’s a nonstarter here in Florida. We will go after child predators with everything we’ve got. And we’re going to hold Roblox accountable.”
In April, the Attorney General’s Office subpoenaed the online gaming platform that is widely used by children, seeking information on marketing, age-verification requirements and how chat rooms are moderated.
Uthmeier is troubled by what his Office discovered.
“We immediately started gathering information, and what we found is evidence that they’ve been operating in a careless way. They know child predators are using the app to go after our kids, and they haven’t done enough about it,” Uthmeier said.
“They don’t have enough protocols in place for age verification. They’re not doing enough to monitor the content that’s being shared over the application, sexual content with 8- (and) 9-year-olds. And ultimately, they haven’t done enough to work with the state to ensure proper online protocols, so we’re going to hold them accountable.”
Uthmeier alleges that adult users “pretend to be kids themselves.”
“They engage in long-term dialogue, communicating with kids over the platform. They start to send and solicit imagery, sexual content. Ultimately, they schedule meetups, and in the worst of cases, we’ve seen actual physical abuse. So again, in Florida, we’re going to stop at nothing to protect our kids, and that means holding businesses responsible that (choose) profit over protecting children.”
Roblox claimed earlier this month to have made safety improvements in light of concerns raised by Uthmeier and other state-level legal officials.
They have worked to remove access to unrated content, expanded voice moderation into new languages, pulling what is called “inappropriate legacy content,” and “engaging our community.”
But these modifications aren’t stopping Uthmeier.
“Kids are still being solicited online, so they haven’t done enough. We look forward to working with them to the extent they’re willing. And if they’re not, we’ll see them in court or more.”
We reached out to Roblox Monday morning with some questions about Uthmeier’s statements and how the company plans to address them and will update if they comment.