May 28, 2026, 23:59 GMT | Comment
Roblox has joined social media companies such as
Meta Platforms and
TikTok in facing regulatory scrutiny over whether its platform design is addictive, as Connecticut's attorney general hit the company last month with a 43-page investigative subpoena about its design, what it knows about its “dopaminergic effects” and compulsive overuse, its privacy practices, and how its "Robux" virtual currency is used by children under age nine.
Roblox has been hit with an unusually broad investigative subpoena by Connecticut’s attorney general, who is asking wide-ranging and detailed questions about whether the gaming platform violated child privacy laws and designed its platform to be addictive.
The subpoena, first obtained by MLex, demands a long list of extremely granular answers from Roblox, including 90 interrogatories and 75 document production demands that go back to the start of 2016. The Civil Investigative Demand (see
here) requires such detailed answers from Roblox as how many children under age nine use the platform in both Connecticut and the US, and how much those young children spend on its “Robux” virtual currency.
Beyond that, Attorney General William Tong and his staff are demanding information from Roblox on many of the same issues around addictive design and platform safety issues which previously have been limited to social media platforms, such as “dopaminergic effects” and compulsive overuse. Probes about those topics by public enforcers and private litigators resulted in a long list of individual and multi-state suits against Meta Platforms,
YouTube, Snap and TikTok filed by states, public school systems and individual plaintiffs.
Even as Roblox defends online child safety lawsuits filed by Texas and other states, and has managed to head off litigation by the states by launching age-verification and other parental controls (see
here), Connecticut’s investigative subpoena may signal a new area of regulatory risk for the company as the state looks into addictive design problems such as “social network use disorder” that were the basis of suits by New Mexico and other states against platforms such as
Instagram.
“Roblox built an online pedophile playground,” Tong said in announcing the probe this week, although the state didn't release the 43-page CID until a public information request from MLex Thursday. “Our investigation seeks to uncover exactly what the company knew about widespread child exploitation on its platform, how they have profited, and what they have or have not done to protect our kids online.”
Roblox said it will cooperate with the Connecticut probe. “We intend to cooperate with the Attorney General’s office and look forward to sharing all the work Roblox does to help keep users safe," a company spokesperson said Thursday.
The CID shows that Connecticut is looking into whether Roblox violated the US Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), committed deceptive or “unfair” violations of the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act, as well as potential violations of Connecticut banking laws that govern money transfers through its Robux virtual currency.
Like other state litigation against social media platforms, Connecticut is asking Roblox what it knew about compulsive use of the platform by its youngest users. Signed April 20 by Connecticut's consumer protection commissioner, Bryan Cafferelli, the CID was sent to Roblox General Counsel Mark Reinstra at the company's headquarters in San Mateo, California.
Connecticut officials said they are particularly unhappy about a game on Roblox that attempted to recreate the Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut in 2012, in which 20 children between the ages of six and seven died in a mass shooting.
“Explain whether You have conducted or been made aware of research into the negative impacts of Your platform on Child Users, including with respect to non-adult brains, dopaminergic effects, variable reward schedules, loss aversion, impulsive behaviors, compulsive behaviors, excessive use, financial distress, financial immaturity, micro transactions, behavioral addiction, social network use disorder, and sociopsychological or developmental vulnerabilities to developing addictions,” Connecticut asked Roblox in Interrogatory No. 69.
The state also demanded that Roblox produce all documents and communications it holds about “the negative impacts of Your platform on Child Users, including but not limited to non-adult brains, susceptibility to dopamine, variable reward schedules, impulsive behaviors, compulsive use, excessive use, financial distress, financial immaturity, microtransactions, behavioral addiction, social network use disorder, and sociopsychological or developmental vulnerabilities to developing addiction.”
The Connecticut CID doesn’t just ask about the number of users who are minors, or who are under 13 — the age where COPPA protections kick in. The state is also asking detailed questions about Roblox users who are under age nine, and about the number of its users whose age is unknown.
The state asked Roblox to furnish data on the average revenue in US dollars generated per user under the age of nine, “the average revenue in USD generated per Connecticut User under the age of nine;” and detailed data about how young children in that under-9 demographic use its Robux virtual currency.
Connecticut is also demanding that Roblox explain how it tracks the personal data of minors under age 18. The CID requires Roblox to explain how it “collects, stores, or analyzes data either purposefully or inadvertently, related to Users under the age of eighteen (18), or related to personal medical information, or related to personal financial information, by embedding pixels or through the use by Roblox or any third party of any of Roblox’s Device Data Collection Tools.”
Other privacy questions asked by the state include whether Roblox allows advertisers to target its users under the age of 18, and to describe “how any such targeting occurs.” Connecticut asked Roblox what data it collects about its users’ app and file names, “keystroke patterns or rhythms, and audio settings and connected audio devices.”
Amid regulatory and private litigation challenging its practices (see
here), Roblox is already seeing a slowdown in the growth of people who access its gaming platform due to new "age check" restrictions it announced earlier this year, the company said in a recent securities filing (see
here). Those new online safety measures will lead to a contraction of Daily Active User growth in the first and second quarters of 2026, Roblox said, leading the company to lower its revenue growth guidance for 2026.
The design of platforms such as Instagram and YouTube that used features like autoplay, infinite scroll, appearance-altering “filters” and notifications and counts of social media likes were central to testimony in two trials this year over whether those social media platforms were addictive to teens or children using them (see
here). Both trials ended in jury verdicts against the defendants in March.
In the first of those cases, New Mexico won a $375 million jury verdict against Meta, with a bench trial over the state’s proposed $3.7 billion mental health remediation fund and potential injunctive changes to Instagram and Facebook ending last week (see
here). California and a group of other states are due to take on Meta, TikTok, Snap and YouTube in a federal trial in August.
Tong’s statements to the press this week suggest that the attorney general sees little airspace between the practices of social media platforms and gaming services like Roblox that are heavily used by minors.
“We are done waiting for half measures from Big Tech and Washington,” he said. “We’ve already sued Meta, we’re investigating TikTok, and now we’re investigating Roblox.”
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