US Senate launches investigation into Roblox over child safety failures

Republican senator Josh Hawley and Democrat senator Dick Durbin have launched a formal congressional investigation into Roblox, accusing the platform of prioritizing revenue over child safety. The probe is headed by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, and Roblox Corporation has until August 31 to hand over key documents and preserve its records.

The senators' open letter to CEO David Baszucki is blunt: over the past decade, police have arrested people for grooming, sexual abuse, kidnapping, rape, and murder connected to children they met on Roblox. The platform is also accused of being used to trade child sexual abuse material, run sexually explicit virtual experiences with minors, and lure children into in-person meetings. The letter highlights that Roblox reported 65,381 instances of suspected child sexual exploitation to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in 2025 — more than double the 2024 figure. The subcommittee's document requests go deep: they want to know how much revenue Roblox earns from users in each age bracket from five to 50-plus, how many hours those users spend on the platform weekly, what percentage of under-18 accounts have parental oversight enabled, and why Roblox's new age verification settings don't apply to developer-created in-game chat features. They're also asking how many accounts flagged for sexual exploitation between 2023 and 2025 were actually reviewed by a human — not just an automated system. Notably, the committee is also requesting details on Roblox's brand partnerships with Sesame Street, the NFL, and FIFA.

Roblox has been under mounting pressure from multiple directions. Australia is scrutinizing the platform over grooming and explicit content reports, Florida's Attorney General called it a breeding ground for predators, and Texas sued Roblox Corporation over child exploitation accusations. Earlier this year, Roblox agreed to pay over $12 million to the state of Nevada as part of a child safety settlement. The platform markets itself as suitable for children as young as five, which makes the scale of the reported exploitation figures especially damaging — and the bipartisan nature of this Senate investigation signals the issue has moved well beyond partisan politics.

Roblox chief safety officer Matt Kaufman responded with a statement saying the company is "built on the foundation of safety" and looks forward to sharing facts about how it protects children. CEO David Baszucki will also be required to provide evidence on how Roblox plans to better police itself going forward. Given the August 31 document deadline and the breadth of the interrogatories, this investigation is unlikely to be a quiet one.