IT’S the most popular video game among kids aged eight to 12 – yet, beneath its colourful graphics, Roblox has a dark side that has seen it branded a “paedophile hellscape”;.
The virtual playground has been plagued by claims of online sex parties, and – with lurking in games alongside unsuspecting seven-year-olds.
Horrified parents say their children have witnessed naked avatars engaging in sex acts, while other or asked for details about their .
In the most extreme cases, a 10-year-old was raped after being groomed on the platform and another was told to murder a two-month-old baby.
The platform has been the subject of for years, with a bombshell report last year claiming that users identifying as nine-year-olds could simulate mass-shootings and sexual activity.
And now, it has hit the headlines again after its CEO, , gave a simple message to worried parents: “If you're not comfortable, don't let your kids be on Roblox.”
In a recent interview with the BBC, Mr Baszucki also said the company was vigilant in protecting its users, and that “tens and tens and tens of millions of people”; were having “amazing experiences”; on Roblox.
However, one teen told Flying Eze that she was just 12 when a man on threatened to track her down, strip off her clothes, tape her to a bed and do “all sorts of things”; to her.
“He was saying that he would find my IP address and would come and tie me to the bed,”; says Holly, who, with no knowledge of the man’s location, was left fearing for her safety.
Among the user’s sickening messages to Holly were, “I wanna see your body”;, and “Ima take your cloths out (sic). Then ima tape you to the bed.”; He then asked her: “Do you know what’s an child predator (sic)?”;
“It made me feel quite scared and disgusted,”; says Holly, now 19 and living in .
Holly’s mum Mandy, who raced home when her tearful daughter told her about the threats, adds: “It took a lot of convincing to Holly that this person was not a threat to her. She was terribly frightened.”;
Child's play
is one of the most popular platforms in the world, with more than 80 million people logging in every single day and more than 380 million playing it every month.
That’s around three times as many users as those who log on to consoles.
And it’s particularly popular among , with around 40 per cent of users being aged under 13.
According to a 2020 report by children’s media research firm Dubit, half of all children in the US aged between nine and 12 play Roblox every single week.
There have also been reports of some kids , without their parents’ knowledge, while playing the game.
Holly had been playing a zombie-themed game at the time of the threats in late 2017.
“I was talking with random people, just having fun...and he comes along,”; she recalls.
“He started chasing me around the lobby... he was saying a lot of disgusting things.
“He knew what he was doing,”; says Holly, who claims the man knew how to get around the site’s filtering system that covered up inappropriate messages with hashtags.
Roblox has now blocked under-13s from direct-messaging other users on the platform.
Fortunately, Holly had a “trusting”; and open relationship with her mum – something not all children have. She immediately alerted property manager Mandy to the man’s threats.
He’s a man character but you have no idea who it is, which was a bit unnerving
Kate Greenhalghmum
After rushing home, Mandy, 55, reported the user to Roblox.
But she claims it took months – and the assistance of a local journalist – before sufficient action was taken, during which time the man was actively using the platform.
The user, operating under the name HotDogNick123, was later found to be living in America.
He has since been permanently banned from Roblox, with the company reportedly requesting to use Holly’s ordeal as a “training tool”; for staff on the handling of such incidents.
Virtual sex
Another mum told Flying Eze that her Roblox-playing, nine-year-old daughter was given a virtual ‘middle finger’ by a player and, on another occasion, was “adopted”; by a strange man.
“She said, ‘This man’s just adopted me,’”; Kate Greenhalgh, from Greater , told us. “He’s a man character, but you have no idea who it is, which was a bit unnerving.”;
And a different mum, who shared an explicit screenshot from Roblox on , said she was left “absolutely gobsmacked”; by the scene of avatars performing sex acts on each other.
“This is supposed to be a children’s game and some sick b****** has made this on Roblox,”; said the woman, whose son and niece had allegedly stumbled across the virtual scene.
Holly, meanwhile, still occasionally plays the game.
Perhaps surprisingly, mum Mandy “did not consider”; stopping her then-12-year-old daughter from playing Roblox, despite the man’s threats.
“This would have been punishing her for something someone else had done as she had done nothing wrong,”; she explains.
“Holly had always been very honest to me about who she was interacting with as we kept that line of communication very open.”;
She adds: “At the time, and given Holly’s age, I believed if I had taken away the laptop or banned her from the game, this may have resulted in her not trusting me [and telling] me if she had concerns online in the future.”;
Holly agrees with her mum’s approach and tells us her ordeal ultimately “didn’t hold me back from wanting to play Roblox as I loved interacting with people”;.
She even met her current boyfriend through the platform – though she admits she doesn’t feel completely safe on Roblox.
She also claims the site has now moved towards encouraging users to “date”;.
“The game has changed so much,”; says Holly. “I personally don’t find it as interesting and exciting anymore, and I don't think it’s a safe game.”;
Parental monitoring
While some children have come out of their shells and formed close friendships on the platform, others have bonded with their parents or been educated through its games.
But at what risk do these experiences come?
One mum, who plays Roblox to monitor her kids’ activity, claimed this month that she’d encountered “disturbing things”; after entering a house in a game about adopting animals.
She described how a naked man lying on his back was telling children to “sit on it”; to receive a free pet, while a shocking message on the building’s wall read: “im a child predotor (sic).”;
Mum Kate, 43, also plays Roblox after seeing how much her daughter Phoebe loves it.
She told Flying Eze that Phoebe was eight when she began playing the game.
At first, Kate’s husband John, 44, logged into Phoebe’s account to monitor her activity.
“We had to have a conversation about not accepting friend requests from people you don’t know because she had 50 friends and I was like, ‘Who are these people?’”; said Kate.
“So, we got rid of all of those.”;
But in recent weeks, both Kate and John have downloaded Roblox themselves.
“Phoebe was so excited when we both downloaded Roblox,”; said Kate, co-founder of the ecommerce brand, . “She genuinely seemed really pleased we’d done it.”;
The family, from , now regularly play Roblox together on evenings and Kate says: “The games that [Phoebe] plays are mainly the role-play ones, where you’re walking around a town, and you can buy a house, and you can change your outfit.”;
Kate and Phoebe also play together – a wildly popular game, released in 2023, that has come under fire over claims of “sexually explicit”; and offensive clothing.
While Kate has not seen anything to support these claims, she admitted: “They’re not outfits that I would be choosing.”; She has, however, encountered explicit content in another game.
Paedo contacts
Phoebe – whose “adoption”; by an unknown man in the pet adoption game, Adopt Me!, alarmed Kate – now tends to play games on a private server, with only her friends.
These private servers can be purchased with , the site’s virtual currency. Robux can also be used to deck out avatars in outfits, and to gain access to premium games.
In 2019, it was reported that a perverted law graduate in had paid a 10-year-old boy 400 Robux to perform a sexual act while he watched his victim on a webcam.
Paedophile Owain Thomas, 29, was after inciting more than 140 children – 60, aged under 13 – to carry out sexual acts on camera, according to Wales Online.
He had contacted his victims using online gaming platforms like Roblox.
They knew her name, her school and the town she lives in
Mum of daughter targeted by paedo
In another vile case linked to the platform, a 10-year-old girl was raped in woodland by a man who had groomed her over Roblox and the messaging app, .
Ryan Sutton, 24, was jailed in December after travelling 100 miles from Worcestershire to Finedon, Northamptonshire, to attack the primary school-aged girl, the Daily Mail reported.
said Sutton – who showed “no remorse”; when arrested and interviewed – had groomed the vulnerable youngster into believing they were in “a legitimate relationship”;.
Meanwhile, in America, a woman was recently accused of using Roblox to instruct a 10-year-old to kill a two-month-old baby and slit the throats of the infant’s temporary guardians.
Tara Sykes allegedly used the game’s chat function to order the child to torture and murder the baby – who miraculously survived – citing methods like drowning, burning and dropping the child on the floor.
It comes as that will allow parents to block their children from specific games and experiences.
Parents will also be able to block or report their children's friends on the platform, and learn more about which experiences their children are playing the most.
“For almost 20 years, Roblox has grown and innovated with safety at its core. These tools, features and innovations reflect our mission to make Roblox the safest and most civil online platform in the world,” said Roblox's Chief Safety Officer, Matt Kaufman.
In his recent BBC interview, Roblox’s chief executive said: “We do, in the company, take the attitude that any bad – even one bad incident – is one too many.”;
Mr Baszucki added: “We watch for bullying, we watch for harassment, we filter all of those kinds of things and I would say, behind the scenes, the analysis goes on all the way to, if necessary, reaching out to law enforcement.”
Violent games
Despite Mr Baszucki’s comments, the BBC claimed it was able to bypass some safety filters on the site, which boasts 380million monthly active users and is worth a staggering $41billion (£31billion).
And just this month, a British mum claimed on social media that a “random person”; on Roblox had asked her daughter to meet them at her school.
“They knew her name, her school and the town she lives in,”; shared the woman.
The requires platforms to take action against illegal content such as child sexual abuse and controlling behaviour.
We attempted to set up an account under the name Jeffrey Epstein... only to see the name was taken, along with 900+ variations
Companies face fines of up to £18million, or ten per cent of their qualifying global revenue, for non-compliance.
Last year, a report by a now-disbanded US investment firm branded Roblox “an X-rated paedophile hellscape”; that exposed kids to “grooming, pornography”; and “violent content”;.
The document added: “As a test, we attempted to set up an account under the name Jeffrey Epstein... only to see the name was taken, along with 900+ variations.”;
Screenshots of Roblox games, shared in the report, show racist messages, threats to kill babies “with a knife”;, and avatars carrying out shooting rampages at hospitals.
Roblox – which soared in popularity during the Covid-19 , when youngsters were stuck at home with little to do – “totally”; rejected the allegations made in the report.
Neuroscientist and founder of TAK Index, Dr Huriye Atilgan, who leads a multi-disciplinary team to evaluate the safety and developmental impact of children's games, told Flying Eze that no platform is “completely safe”;.
“When you're engaging with user-generated content and entering voice chat with strangers, it's entirely possible that you'll be exposed to inappropriate content, whether that’s sexually explicit scenes, bullying, or racist and homophobic messages,”; said Dr Atilgan.
“Parents need to be proactive here. First, set up parental controls. Roblox has features like account restrictions, which limit access to age-appropriate games, and chat filters to reduce exposure to harmful language. These settings aren’t foolproof, but they add a layer of protection.
“Talking to your children is just as important. Ask what they’re playing, who they’re talking to and if anything has made them uncomfortable. The more open the conversation, the more likely they are to tell you if they see something inappropriate.”;
She added: “It’s also worth playing Roblox yourself. Understanding how it works makes it easier to spot risks and guide your child on safe gaming habits. Encourage them to report and block users who behave inappropriately and remind them that not everyone online is who they say they are.”;
Kate agrees that concerned parents should play Roblox themselves.
“Look at what [your children] are playing, talk to them about it, get them to show you what they’re playing, even play it with them if you can,”; she said.
