Florida authorities recently arrested a man accused of soliciting a child through the popular gaming platform Roblox. The suspect told the victim that he was 18 years old and lived in California. The messages between the suspect and the child contained numerous sexually explicit texts and photographs but no nudity.
00:01:25.020Roblox user, Florida authorities recently arrested a man soliciting a child through the popular gaming platform Roblox.
00:01:32.200The rest was announced by the Flagler County Sheriff's Office FCSO on November 7.
00:01:37.420The suspect, Brandon Rodriguez Silva, 20, of San Jose, California, has been charged with transmitting material harmful to minors by electronic device and soliciting a child for unlawful sexual conduct using a computer service device.
00:01:53.760According to authorities, Rodriguez Silva allegedly engaged a Florida child on Roblox and encouraged them to move to the messaging app Discord before eventually swapping cell phone numbers.
00:02:04.640The suspect told the victim that he was 18 years old and lived in California, began requesting nude photographs.
00:02:11.740The messages between the suspect and the child contained numerous sexually explicit texts and photographs, but no nudity.
00:02:17.840The victim's parents ultimately caught wind of the conversations and reported them to authorities.
00:02:23.740Fortunately, this parent acted as the sheriff in their home by reviewing their children's message and contacting law enforcement immediately after discovering a stranger was attempting to take advantage of their child.
00:02:34.040The sheriff said, the sheriff said, FCSO said that the arrest was more than two years in the making.
00:02:39.780It took two years to get to this point.
00:02:41.460OK, so when you look at statistics with Roblox, Brandon, I'll come to you and I've got a bunch of different things I want to talk about this.
00:02:48.980The first, so I've never played the game either, but I wonder why they can't just simply like automate it so that stuff like that can't be spoken about on there.
00:02:59.880Or like it gets flagged if they're requesting pictures, especially those type of pictures or saying those type of things on there.
00:03:06.220Because, I mean, it seems like a pretty simple thing to do, and it seems like a pretty big liability for the company if that's happening.
00:03:11.580So that's like my first common sense thought is why don't they have things in place that could catch that or keep that off of there.
00:03:20.280And, yeah, I mean, I think it's played too many video games.
00:03:23.060I hear like a lot of people talking about this game.
00:03:25.440So, yeah, both those things, too much video games and why can't you do the common sense thing of just filtering that stuff out and not allowing it on there?
00:03:33.320Yeah, Tom, what do you think about this?
00:03:34.840Well, I think you don't need Kapersky.
00:04:28.620Kids can stream and interact by live chat, showing their, you know, your kills or your gaming escapades.
00:04:35.720And they have found that they've actually been able to exploit children through video and chat features inside Twitch.
00:04:42.860And then you, the risk mechanisms are simple.
00:04:46.240If you don't supervise your kid and there's live intercontact available through that gaming platform, then there will be predators in there attempting to initiate inappropriate contact.
00:05:32.600And when you look at this Fairfield man, September of 2024, last year pleaded guilty to molesting a 10 year old girl whom he met on Roblox.
00:05:41.240New York security guard, September of 2024, last year arrested for coercing an 11 year old girl into explicit content.
00:05:48.620California boy suicide, April of 2025, 15 year old Ethan Dallas allegedly groomed on Roblox.
00:06:42.220Bloomberg reported 24 Roblox related arrests by 2024, plus six in 2025.
00:06:50.340Roblox has introduced over 145 safety measures in 2025, including age estimation for chat access, banning under 13 from direct messaging, outside games, prohibiting image video sharing, and using filters to block personal info.
00:07:04.880So it employs AI moderation, 24, seven human teams.
00:07:08.680Because of some of the cases in November of 2024, it added content categories and barred adults from chatting with under 13 year olds and experiences.
00:07:16.920Roblox denies claim, calling them misleading and appealing appeals ruling.
00:07:22.580California judge denied arbitration in a father's case.
00:07:41.64015 of users are actually under 9 years old.
00:07:45.46015% of Roblox users are under 9 years old.
00:07:50.740And only 17% of Roblox players are over the age of 25.
00:07:55.160So this is the part when you're looking at all the exchange and the conversations that kids are having and parents are sitting there kind of trying to monitor and see what is the real risk that's out there.
00:09:11.520We're having a conversation with so many people around us right now who are all into the homeschooling part.
00:09:16.160And more and more and more parents are bringing up why they're homeschooling.
00:09:21.440Why they're considering homeschooling instead of putting the kids in school.
00:09:24.620Adam, I think you wanted to say something.
00:09:25.840No, it's reminiscent of what we were discussing, I believe, on Monday when we did the poll of at what age would you allow your kids to use social media?
00:09:34.260And it was like, I think 3% were like, any age doesn't matter.
00:09:37.060And then the vast majority were like 15 or 18 plus.
00:09:41.520But I don't know anything about Roblox, but this is what?
00:09:44.220Where social media meets gaming in a virtual world?
00:09:47.780You could also interact with people online?