A Baton Rouge man is at the center of another lawsuit filed against Roblox and Discord, this time in federal court.
Joseph Randall, a 20-year-old from Baton Rouge, allegedly used Roblox, a digital gaming platform, and later Discord, a messaging app, to sexually groom and exploit a 13-year-old girl. The East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office arrested and charged him in January.
The girl’s lawyers argue that both tech companies failed to properly inform parents of the potential dangers on their sites and moderate content.
“ Roblox essentially gave these predators the ice cream truck,” said Martin Gould, one of the girl’s lawyers. “They told them where the park was and they gave them free ice cream.”
It’s still an industrywide issue as online games are ‘hunting grounds’ for online predators, the New York Times reports.
Gould said that he’s received complaints about other platforms, too, but the focus is on Roblox and Discord because of how often complaints are received about the two platforms.
“ There are others, but I think if you talk to the experts in the field, they would say that Roblox and Discord are the chief offenders,” Steven Vanderport, another lawyer representing the girl, said.
Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrell filed a lawsuit in state court against Roblox in August, claiming it’s “the number one site for child predators,” and at a press conference, mentioned Randall by name.
Roblox and Discord said in separate statements to WWNO and WRKF that they don’t comment on active lawsuits, but are committed to safety and use advanced technology to protect their users.
"While no system is perfect, Roblox is designed with rigorous built-in safety features, and our policies are purposely stricter than those found on other platforms, including limiting chat for younger users, not allowing sharing images through chat and filters designed to block the sharing of personal information,” a Roblox spokesman said in a statement.
The spokesman also pointed out that this is an industry-wide issue and that Roblox is actively dedicating resources to developing new industry standards. The New York Times reviewed public records and found that Roblox has more than 20 lawsuits filed against it.
Roblox was also recently in hot water, sending a cease-and-desist to a user who said he worked with law enforcement to get six predators arrested off the platform. The user, who goes by Schlep, is also represented by Gould’s firm.
Discord has also received national attention for predators using its platform to prey on minors. The New York Times reports that predators use it to directly commit these crimes and share pictures and messages they have gotten on other platforms.
A Discord spokesperson said that the company is deeply committed to safety and requires users to be at least 13 years old to use the platform.
“We use a combination of advanced technology and trained safety teams to proactively find and remove content that violates our policies,” a Discord spokesperson said in a statement. “We maintain strong systems to prevent the spread of sexual exploitation and grooming on our platform and also work with other technology companies and safety organizations to improve online safety across the internet."
This isn’t just an issue in the video game side of the tech industry. In 2019, the New York Times reported that there were more than 18.4 million videos flagged as child sexual abuse across the internet in 2018, enabled by tech companies.
