Bucks County District Attorney Joe Khan, saying parents are “outmatched” by social media companies in the fight for the online safety of their children, has filed a federal lawsuit against the makers of a popular online video game that he said had allowed sexual predators to exploit children.
Khan announced Monday that his office is taking legal action against the creators of Roblox, a game that he said 75% of American children between the ages of 9 and 12 play regularly and one that he said has led to crimes against them.
“Today we are sending a clear message to social media companies,” Khan said. “If you put our children in harm’s way, we’re coming for you.”
A spokesperson for Roblox did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In underscoring the necessity of the lawsuit, Kahn cited the recent conviction of a child predator who used the game to find victims. Alec Magill, of Southampton, posed as a teenage boy on Roblox and persuaded two teenage girls to send him sexually explicit photos and videos. He was sentenced Friday to county jail.
“Roblox gave Magill the tools to hide in plain sight and then target and exploit children from behind his phone and computer screen here in Bucks County,” Khan said, adding that Magill, 32, used the game’s “completely lax parental notification,” and lack of age-verification features to seek out his victims.
Khan filed the suit in federal court in California as an amended version of a lawsuit he began in 2023 while serving as Bucks County’s solicitor. The suit contends that the companies behind TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and YouTube have worsened anxiety and depression among young people through their apps, particularly in Bucks County schools.
The amended complaint adds Roblox, as well as Elon Musk’s X and Discord, an online messaging platform, alleging that they have allowed underage users to be exposed to “an endless barrage of pornography, hate speech, cyberbullying.”
Bucks County Commissioner Diane Marseglia said Monday that she and her colleagues support Khan’s efforts, saying the social media companies “have ignored both science and the law.”
“If you are 21 years or younger, you have had social media in your life the entire time,” she said. “In fact, an entire generation has now reached maturity with social media and without the protections they deserve, and, looking back, it seems we should have known the risks, but we didn’t.”
Khan filed the suit under the state’s Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law, which gives county prosecutors the authority to pursue cases such as this to prevent a danger to the communities they serve.
Earlier this year, he filed another civil action against Richard and Ronald Goetter, who own a rental property in Dublin. Khan characterized the two as “slumlords” who forced their low-income tenants to live in hazardous conditions.
The district attorney says the risk Roblox poses to children is just as dangerous.
“As a parent of two young kids in Bucks County, I believe that social media companies can and should do more to ensure their products are not used as a backdoor for predators to access them,” he said. “It is time that we hold these global corporations responsible for the harm that they caused.”