Facing Legal Actions, Roblox Teams With State AG Group on Youth Safety
Amid increasing scrutiny from state enforcers, Roblox is partnering with attorneys general on a youth online safety initiative. In a news release Wednesday, the Attorney General Alliance (AGA) said the “initiative aims to reduce online harms through the development of practical, collaborative, and measurable design-based safeguards while also sharing best practices and tools that public and private partners can use to collaborate more effectively and better protect children online.”
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The AGA said Roblox and the Center for Humane Technology are inaugural partners of the initiative, which includes bipartisan AGs, the tech industry, parents, academic experts, state and federal law enforcement, and kids-safety nonprofits and advocacy groups.
The announcement comes amid multiple legal actions from state AGs against the popular gaming platform. Earlier this month, Florida issued criminal subpoenas to investigate whether the gaming platform’s actions -- or lack of them -- aided bad actors in harming children on the platform (see 2510200041). Also in October, Kentucky’s attorney general sued the platform for alleged exploitation of children (see 2510070042). And in August, Louisiana’s AG accused Roblox of facilitating the distribution of child sexual abuse material and potentially violating federal child privacy statutes (see 2508140051).
Roblox aims to work with the AGs to “move quickly to co-design and deploy the next generation of protective tools and frameworks,” Roblox CEO David Baszucki said in the AGA press release. “This collaboration will help set new safety standards across the digital ecosystem used by kids and teens.”
Center for Human Technology Policy Director Camille Carlton said, “This partnership represents a necessary step toward collectively addressing these challenges at the design level, ensuring that all digital technologies are built to support, rather than undermine, young people's safety."
AGA’s executive committee includes New Mexico AG Raul Torrez (D), Nevada AG Aaron Ford (D) and North Dakota AG Drew Wrigley (R). The group was previously known as the Conference of Western Attorneys General but has since expanded its focus beyond the western states.