Child advocacy organizations Fairplay and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) are filing a complaint against Roblox at the Federal Trade Commission, asking the agency to investigate the gaming giant for practices they say exploit children through manipulative monetization, addictive design features and chat systems that have enabled predators to reach minors.
The Request for Investigation, shared exclusively with Fortune ahead of its public filing on Wednesday, alleges that Roblox is violating Section 5 of the FTC Act through unfair and deceptive practices. It also calls on the commission to scrutinize the platform’s compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, an act Fortune has covered in the past after the FTC released an updated version of it that has left social media platforms asking for more guidance. A broad coalition is backing the effort, including Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation Movement, ParentsSOS, the Consumer Federation of America, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
Roblox has estimated that roughly 40% of its more than 130 million daily active users are under 13 and allows children as young as 5 to create accounts. Revenue climbed to $3.6 billion in 2024, up from $2.8 billion the year before, while user engagement surged nearly 50% over three years to 73.5 billion hours. In Q1, over half of daily active users were age verified. Of those, about a third each are under 13; between 13 and 17; and over 18.
