Two giant tech platforms, currently at the height of popularity and used by millions of kids, are facing mounting public pressure, both in the courtroom and in the court of public opinion.
In early February, 800+ parents signed two open letters, one to each board for Roblox and Discord. These letters accused them of trying to keep their cases, and moreover, the truth about what is happening, quiet.
Specifically, these letters accuse Roblox and Discord of pushing the hundreds of child sexual abuse lawsuits filed against them out of the public’s view through forced arbitration.
The two open letters were originally written by a group of parents representing a giant swath of the US—Washington, California, Florida, and Texas.
These letters are part of a wave of bombshell lawsuits that have been filed against these mega-platforms for supposedly knowing about and failing to stop online grooming, sextortion, and real-world sexual assault and rape that were facilitated on their platforms.
Right now, the outcome of the lawsuits is unclear. But what is clear is the message from the families: stop trying to silence survivors.
How are Roblox and Discord Trying to Hide These Lawsuits?
Roblox and Discord are trying to limit the negative headlines by requiring anyone who wants to sue them to first go through arbitration.
The number of these lawsuits, filed by law firms like Dolman Law Group, continues to grow nationwide. The story has become uncontainable as parents across the country discuss whether or not their children might be in danger on these platforms. And although the topic is hot among parents now, our news cycles run fast, especially in the current political climate, and parents have busy lives. This means without constant coverage, the currently energetic topic will eventually die out like The Wave at a Marlins baseball game.
And that is exactly the point. Right now, we have accusations and generalized statements. Most of the public doesn’t know the details. If they can contain the cases in arbitration, it will stay that way, but if they can’t, they’re looking at a potentially very different situation.
Key Differences: Public Court vs. Private Arbitration
When companies like Roblox and Discord push for forced arbitration, they want to move the legal battle out of the public eye and into a private setting. This strategy is specifically designed to manage a company’s reputation by keeping sensitive details out of the news cycle.
It’s not the initial accusations that harm a brand (usually), it’s the discovery process where the dirty secrets stain like a mixture of ink and blood.
Here is how arbitration helps limit negative headlines:
Closed-Door Proceedings: Private sessions mean reporters can’t attend.
Sealed Records: Keeps court filings hidden from public searches.
Gag Order: Prevents victims from speaking about the proceedings.
Pattern Suppression: Prevents victims and attorneys from pointing to similar cases.
Limited Discovery: Internal company emails aren’t leaked, and depositions are sealed.
Outcome Secrecy: Settlement amounts are never officially disclosed, preventing anyone from knowing how “bad” things really were, since there is no scale in the form of the money paid.
Admitting Fault: In private arbitration, everything is sealed, the compensation is secret, and the company almost never admits fault.
And in case this wasn’t clear, nobody can talk about any of this to anyone.
Why Can Roblox and Discord Potentially Force Arbitration?
Roblox and Discord can potentially force those who are bringing cases against them into arbitration because of user “agreements” that are required to play the game, and can take hours to days to truly understand.
These are essentially legal contracts, and they 100% favor the company and almost always require private resolution over public trials.
While companies argue these “clickwrap” agreements are binding for all disputes, their likelihood of holding up in child abuse cases has plummeted due to the 2022 Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (EFAA).
Recent court rulings in 2025 and 2026, particularly in California, have increasingly found these fine-print clauses are unenforceable for cases involving sexual exploitation or harm since federal law grants victims the right to “veto” secret proceedings in favor of a public jury trial.
The Problem With User Agreements
It is estimated that if the average person read the terms of agreement and policies on every website they visit in a day, it would take them 25 days.
In fact, the average user would likely need a college degree or perhaps even a master’s level of education to truly digest the Roblox Terms of Service, which functions more like a dense legal journal than a set of rules.
Even a quick skim could take 30 minutes, but a deep, meaningful understanding of the terms—including critical details that are linked to separate pages—would require roughly 5 hours of intense, focused study.
The text is thick with complex legal vocabulary like indemnification, sub-licensable, arbitration, severability, and jurisdiction, terms that are virtually invisible to the children who play the game and are confusing for most adults.
Ultimately, these contracts are so linguistically layered that a user is essentially being asked to sign a high-level corporate agreement just to access what amounts to an online game for children.
Why These Letters Were Written
According to reporting from ABC News, more than 800 parents signed the letter directed at Roblox, while another group of families sent a similar letter to Discord.
Many of these parents already have active lawsuits, and others have cases that are getting ready to be filed.
These letters outline two principles:
Predators use these platforms to groom and exploit their children.
The companies are now trying to force those cases to be held in private instead of open court.
As one line from the Roblox letter put it:
“Secret arbitration is not protection; it is concealment.”
The Broader Lawsuit Landscape
These letters did not come out of nowhere.
Roblox alone is facing more than 100 cases that allege predators used the platform to target minors.
Attorneys representing these families say they are also investigating thousands of additional claims involving the grooming of minors, sexual exploitation, and sextortion using self-created images by the minors, and some that even involve sexual assault, kidnapping, and rape.
In many of these cases, plaintiffs claim the predators first contacted children on Roblox using accounts that appeared as minors or as adults offering Robux (real money that is spent in the game to make it more fun). The conversations were then moved to more private communication platforms, like Discord, where monitoring and parental visibility drop off significantly.
Letter to Roblox: Safety Promises vs. Legal Tactics
The Roblox letter directly challenges what parents describe as a contradiction between the company’s public messaging and its legal strategy.
Roblox has long marketed itself as a child-friendly platform. Executives have publicly emphasized that even a single safety incident is “one too many.”
Parents say that messaging rings hollow.
“No company that claims to put ‘community before company’ can in good conscience attempt to silence child victims to protect itself.”
The letter outlines multiple alleged grooming scenarios, including cases where children were:
Manipulated into sending explicit images
Extorted using in-game currency (Robux)
Lured onto third-party apps for further exploitation
One family wrote:
“Our son’s life will never be the same… Not a day goes by that we don’t wish that we had never let him use Roblox.”
Another parent described losing their child to suicide after online exploitation:
“By trying to force his case into arbitration… Roblox is choosing secrecy over accountability.”
The letter ultimately demands that Roblox publicly commit to ending forced arbitration in sexual abuse cases.
Letter to Discord: Grooming Pipelines and “Silencing” Claims
The Discord letter echoes many of the same themes, but focuses more heavily on how predators use the platform’s communication tools.
Parents say Discord servers, private messages, and chat features became grooming environments once initial contact was made elsewhere.
“Predators easily reached them through your servers, channels, and private messages.”
The letter accuses Discord of refusing to take responsibility once abuse occurred, and instead attempting to shield itself legally.
“Forced arbitration does not protect children. It protects predators and platforms.”
Families described devastating sexual exploitation that occurred through the platform, including sextortion, self-harm, and suicide.
One parent wrote:
“The pain and confusion… were more than he could navigate at his young age.”
Like the Roblox families, these families are demanding that Discord abandon arbitration efforts and allow survivors to pursue claims publicly.
The Legal Flashpoint: Forced Arbitration
At the center of both letters is the same legal fight.
Companies are invoking arbitration terms of service, arguing that disputes must be resolved privately.
Families argue that those clauses should not apply to child sexual abuse cases.
They point to federal legislation like the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, which limits the use of arbitration in sexual misconduct disputes.
The letters argue that attempting to apply arbitration to child exploitation claims is both legally questionable and morally indefensible.
Company Responses
Roblox has publicly maintained that child safety is a top priority.
In prior statements, the company said it is:
Investing in AI age verification
Using human moderators and automated filters
Restricting chat features for younger users
Working with law enforcement on abuse cases
A spokesperson previously stated the company is “deeply troubled by any allegations about harms to children online” and is committed to improving platform safety.
Discord has similarly said it is committed to safety and requires users to be at least 13 years old to use the platform.
Neither company publicly addressed the open letters in detail at the time of reporting.
Why This Moment Matters
These letters are not lawsuits themselves, but they are definitely a type of strategic pressure.
These two open letters are not something we commonly see, but they definitely make a few things clear:
The number of cases is growing fast.
This is personal. Families want public trials, not private settlements.
Platforms are going to have to start answering for the things they allow on their sites, especially when it comes to kids and sexual abuse.
If your child was harmed on Roblox, you are not alone. And even if you thought your hands were tied because you agreed to their textbook on legal jargon, you may still have legal options.
Our team is one of the largest sexual abuse firms in the country with specific experience handling child exploitation and platform liability cases nationwide. Contact us today and find out if we can help your family to get justice and compensation.
We know what you’re going through. Hang in there and don’t let them get away with this. Justice goes a long way toward healing.
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