Kate was just 10 years old when she was sent explicit photos from a person she met on Roblox.
Now a Palo Alto High School student, who doesn’t want to reveal her true name, she explains that the incident began when she wanted to level up points in a Roblox game called “Koala Cafe.” She could accomplish this by serving customers or completing various tasks, Kate told Anthro recently.
It was during this time that a game administrator reached out to Kate through the Koala Cafe Discord, an off-game messaging app, and personally approached her. The administrator told Kate that if she wanted to level up in the game quickly, there were alternative ways to do so.
It didn’t take long before she found out what these alternative ways were.
According to “Koala Cafe”’s official Roblox gamesite, the game has a total of 35.1+ million visits as of Sept. 18. The game is labeled as suitable for ages 5+, with a minimal maturity rating from the Koala Association, the official Roblox group for “Koala Cafe,” which has created a variety of other games on Roblox.
“I joined, and immediately a very high-up person in the community, one of the [admins that is in charge of the Koala Cafe], who went by the name Moon, personally added me.” Kate said, “[He] personally reached out to me, and I was kind of freaking out, because Moon was kind of known as a celebrity [within Koala Cafe].”
Kate said the admin told her that if she wanted more power in the game, rather than playing for hours on end, she could send him something instead.
“And he goes, ‘Well, you can send me something,’ and it’s like, what?” Kate said. “And young me expected him to want me to send him something in the mail from Amazon or something stupid like that.”
The admin then sent an explicit photo of himself to Kate as an example of what kind of pictures he wanted.
“He then attached an image of his penis, which was erect at the time, and I was super, super freaked out,” Kate said. “And I told my parents, and they got very upset with the Discord community for allowing that.”
According to Kate, she felt as if the predator had robbed her of her innocence.
“I deleted Discord completely because I was just so traumatized from it,” Kate said. “I felt as though my innocence had been taken away from me after seeing that,”
Kate said that with the help of her parents, she reported Moon to Roblox itself, but to her knowledge, the company never took any action against Moon. Not only did nothing happen, but when bringing the situation to the attention of the “Koala Cafe” admins. According to Kate, reporting the issue only resulted in Kate being permanently banned from the game with no explanation.
“I continuously checked his [Moon] account for about a year, but then I stopped,” Kate said.“But that entire year, he was not banned,” Kate said.
This was not the first time Kate saw something explicit on Roblox. She says that when she does see them, her reports fall on deaf ears.
“Whenever incidents happen on Roblox, I always report them, just seeing when people say weird, messed-up stuff, but I very rarely see action where people get banned,” Kate said.
Kate isn’t the only one who has encountered explicit or predatory content. Out of 36 Paly students who responded to an opt-in digital survey, 73% stated they had encountered something explicit or predatory from other players on Roblox.
Roblox is facing numerous lawsuits for what the various plaintiffs say is a failure to protect minors on its gaming platform. In August, the accusations against Roblox came to a boiling point when a Roblox YouTuber known as “Schlep” was banned from Roblox for being a vigilante on the gamesite, violating Roblox’s Terms of Service.
In reality, however, Schlep was actually one of numerous YouTubers who were exposing child predators on Roblox’s various games. According to NBC Chicago, his actions have led to the arrests of six individuals who were charged with grooming children on Roblox.
This started a cascade of lawsuits, one of which was from Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, according to CNN.
“Roblox is overrun with harmful content and child predators because it prioritizes user growth, revenue, and profits over child safety,” Liz Murrill said, according to an article by CNN.
These are far from the only lawsuits coming Roblox’s way. CBS News reported that a family in San Mateo sued Roblox after their 13-year-old girl was allegedly groomed, manipulated, and abducted by a predator whom they met on Roblox.
Anapol Weiss, a personal injury law firm representing the family, claimed that Roblox allowed a 27-year-old man to pose as a peer and was able to initiate contact with the minor, despite Roblox’s promises of child safety. The suit also states that the man continued to contact the child through Discord.
Despite legal allegations, Roblox continues to adamantly claim that it actively bans inappropriate behavior and monitors its games. According to the Roblox Community Standards, the games have no tolerance for children being sexually exploited on its site.
“Roblox has a zero-tolerance policy for the exploitation of minors, including: Any predatory behavior, including attempting to connect with a minor in order to manipulate and exploit them (i.e., grooming),” Roblox Community Standards states.
And yet, lawsuits, parent complaints, and even minors themselves are coming out to testify to what they say they are, the horrors that they have seen or experienced on Roblox.
Sophia Lin, a Paly freshman, says that she was exposed to explicit themes on Roblox.
“I’ve seen things ranging from e-daters to just straight porn drawn in art games,” Lin said. “Especially on the game ‘Draw Me,’ where you draw other people’s avatars, I’ve seen people play with the sole intention of drawing each avatar in gory or explicit poses or scenes.”
Similar to “Koala Cafe,” “Draw Me” continues to remain open despite the reportedly explicit content that players are posting, amassing 71.1+ million visits recorded, according to “Draw Me’s official gamesite as of Sept. 13. The developers have labeled the game as suitable for ages 13+ with a moderate maturity level.
Lin said Roblox does not ban or block these games despite these types of accusations continuing for months from the Roblox player base.
“The fact that predators are successfully creating games that do extremely well, and how there has not yet been action taken against this,” Lin said. “[This] just demonstrates how negligent Roblox is with their moderation and what Roblox really prioritizes when it comes to the platform.”
“Draw Me” has a policy similar to the official Roblox Community Standards against explicit content in its games. In the game description, it states that any explicit drawings are not tolerated.
“Inappropriate artwork is not tolerated and will likely result in a permanent ban,” the description states. “[The game] sends the drawings to us to review. Please be respectful and keep this space safe!”
Lin provides her own account of what she has seen. She claims that she has seen explicit drawings happening often for a prolonged period of time.
“It’s been happening for over two years, ever since I’ve been playing these drawing games,” Lin said.
According to Game Rant, Roblox CEO David Baszucki said in late July of 2025 that he wanted the gamesite to have a dating feature in the future, although there have been no further updates about the implementation of this feature.
Sima Thomas, a librarian at Paly whose 13-year-old son plays Roblox, says parents need to be more aware of the type of content and people that their children are interacting with online.
“It would be nice … if we could have regulations that would force companies to protect children,” Thomas said. “But I think that there are a lot of examples in the United States, where companies don’t have all that much onus put on them. So it really comes back to us [parents] to be aware and to talk to our kids about … what’s out there and [what] the dangers are.”
Thomas says parents can set clear boundaries for their kids can prevent kids from viewing inappropriate content without the parent’s supervision.
“One of the things I always heard as a parent,” she said. “Don’t let your kids go and be on the computer in their room with the door closed, because you don’t really know what they’re doing or who they’re talking to,”
Thomas also emphasized how important it is to communicate and keep people aware of these safety issues regarding minors, because that is the only way changes can be made.
“These are the kind of things that I just don’t think you can … prevent without talking about it,” Thomas said. “So I think … to me, the most important thing is to just keep talking.”
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