Fairplay and NCSE Ask the FTC to Investigate Roblox over Child Safety and ‘Unfair and Deceptive’ Marketing
May 20, 2026 – 12:12 pm
Image by: Roblox
The complaint accuses the gaming platform of misleading the public about its safety and pressuring young users to spend. Roblox ‘strongly disputes’ the claims; the FTC has declined to comment.
Two children’s advocacy groups, Fairplay and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, asked the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Wednesday to investigate Roblox, as reported by Reuters, over concerns regarding its design features and marketing techniques, which they deem ‘unfair and deceptive’.
The groups have requested the agency to determine if Roblox has violated Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, prohibiting unfair or deceptive practices affecting commerce.
The complaint highlights two main issues:
- Deception about Platform Safety: The groups allege that Roblox misleads the public about the safety of its platform.
- Unfair Pressure on Young Users to Spend: They also accuse Roblox of unfairly pressuring young users into spending money to access in-game privileges.
The groups have filed the underlying materials with the FTC under docket 2026-00096. An FTC spokesperson declined to comment to Reuters.
Roblox stated it ‘strongly disputes’ the claims and noted that US users are required to complete an age check before chatting with other players, with minors only able to chat with users close to their own age. The platform’s age-verification system, introduced through Persona, is designed to delete underlying biometric data after processing.
This complaint adds to a growing regulatory and litigation landscape around Roblox over the past year. The platform is currently defending over 140 lawsuits in US federal court, with claimants alleging it knowingly facilitated child sexual exploitation by designing and marketing the platform to minors in ways that allowed predators to target them.
Individual attorneys general from Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Kentucky, Iowa, Tennessee, Nebraska, and Arkansas have also filed separate lawsuits against Roblox over child safety failures.
The age-check architecture Roblox relies on has faced criticism. The mandatory age-gated chat tiers have been undermined by a secondary market in pre-verified accounts, with age-verified Roblox logins appearing for sale on eBay for as little as $4 within days of the mandate taking effect. Additionally, the Persona-based facial estimation system does not confirm whether the user behind the camera is the account holder.
The international regulatory landscape is also significant. The UK’s Ofcom included Roblox in its March letters demanding evidence of further child safety improvements from major platforms, alongside Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube.