Roblox and Discord Contributed to Grooming and Suicide of 15-Year-Old Boy

The mother of a 15-year-old boy from California filed a complaint against Roblox and Discord online game platforms, alleging that her son had been treated and forced to send explicit images to applications before suicide tragically.

NBC News reports that Rebecca Dallas, Ethan Dallas’s mother, filed a complaint to the Superior Court of San Francisco County, accusing Roblox and the discord of “doing recklessly and deceptively operating their business in a way that led to the sexual and suicide” of her son. According to the complaint, Ethan started playing on Roblox around the age of 9 with the approval of his parents and the parental controls in place. However, at the age of 12, he would have been targeted by an adult sex predator who pretended to be a child on the platform and befriends him.

The trial claims that the conversation between Ethan and the predator has gradually degenerated on sexual subjects and explicit exchanges. The man then encouraged Ethan to deactivate parental controls and move their conversations to Discord, where he has more and more asked for explicit photographs and videos, threatening to share the images if Ethan did not comply. The complaint indicates that Ethan conforms to fear and was permanently injured by these experiences, which finally led to his suicide at the age of 15 in April 2024.

The trial accuses Roblox and the discord of unjustified death, fraudulent concealment and false declarations, fake negligent declarations and strict responsibility. He argues that if companies had taken measures to filter users, implement age and verification of identity and other security measures, Ethan would never have interacted with the predator and suffered the damage that resulted in his death.

Rebecca Dallas thought that the two platforms were safe for her son to communicate with friends during the games, given the way the applications have marketed themselves and the parental controls it put. However, the prosecution claims that Roblox has enabled Ethan to deactivate parental controls, and Discord allowed him to create an account and communicate with adults without any parental surveillance.

The complaint alleys that the design of applications “makes children in the grip of pedophiles” due to a lack of guarantees and screening for predators. He also indicates that even if Roblox’s default parameters now do not allow adults to send a message directly to children under the age of 13, children can always create accounts with false birth dates, which gives them full access to direct messaging options.