Roblox can’t keep up. After years of criticism that its platform isn’t safe for the young gamers it caters to, the multibillion-dollar company announced in July that it was rolling out new measures to protect users, including an AI-powered age-verification system and other privacy tools. But researchers, experts, and lawyers have concerns the changes won’t stop Roblox’s bigger problem: staying ahead of individuals using the platform to exploit players. On Roblox, kids do what they want. Launched in 2006, it was designed to let them use simple tools to create the kind of games their peers want to play. In-game currency—Robux—allows them to buy avatar outfits and other items. They can chat, trade. Most games are open-world. During Covid-19 lockdowns it gave iPad-wielding kids a place to semi-socialize. The objective of this summer's big hit, Grow a Garden, is pretty much what you'd expect. The game helped push daily active users past 100 million at the end of July, according to the company; various reports have claimed it was created by a 16-year-old. That freedom has also made the platform difficult to moderate, particularly given that default settings allow anyone to chat with anyone else while they’re playing. With millions of active users, it's hard for kids to know who’s operating the boxy avatars on any given server. Roblox's latest safety measures were intended to make it harder for older people to contact younger ones thanks to what the company calls Trusted Connections, but experts remain unsure they'll completely protect minors. The new rules also come much too late for many of Roblox's users. The company, which made nearly $1 billion in revenue last quarter, has faced allegations for years that its platform is a haven for not only pedophiles but also fascists and nihilist groups like No Lives Matter and 764. Now, WIRED has learned that a group of law firms from across the US is looking to file a flood of lawsuits in the coming months, all for clients who accuse the platform of allegedly facilitating the sexual exploitation and grooming of their kids. “I would assume by the end of September there should be about 100 to hundreds of these [lawsuits] pending, and I would assume by this time next year you'll probably be looking at over 1,000 of these filed,” Matt Dolman from Dolman Law Group tells WIRED. “We alone already have about 300 of these cases.” Dolman says the vast majority of his clients are under the age of 16 and estimates around 60 percent of the cases involve girls. Generation iPad Young people entering classrooms this fall need a totally different tool set than the generations before them. WIRED is here to school you. “We are deeply troubled by any incident that endangers our users, and safety is a top priority,” Roblox spokesperson Stefanie Notaney said in a statement to WIRED. “While no system is perfect, Roblox has implemented rigorous safeguards, including restrictions on sharing personal information, links, and user-to-user image sharing, and prohibiting sexual conversations.” To date there have been fewer than a dozen lawsuits filed against Roblox by people accusing the platform of facilitating the sexual exploitation, grooming, and in some cases, sexual assault of minors. In May, the parents of a 15-year-old girl in Indiana filed a lawsuit alleging she was groomed by a man in his thirties who the suit claims was already on an FBI watch list. In July, the parents of a young teen girl in Alabama filed a lawsuit alleging that as a then-13-year-old she was manipulated by an adult using Robux. According to the lawsuit, the individual convinced her to meet him, and when law enforcement arrived he “was attempting to forcibly remove [the girl's] pants.” On July 29, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of a 13-year-old girl from Iowa who was allegedly kidnapped and raped by a 37-year-old man. That lawsuit alleged that Roblox has created a “hunting ground for child-sex predators” while falsely marketing their platforms as safe for children.