Mother sues Roblox and Discord over grooming linked to teen suicide

The mother of a 15 year old California boy has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Roblox and Discord, alleging that her son was groomed and coerced into sending explicit images on the platforms before dying by suicide in April 2024. The complaint, filed Friday in San Francisco County Superior Court by Rebecca Dallas, says the online interactions began years earlier on Roblox and escalated after the boy moved conversations to Discord.

According to the lawsuit and statements from Dallas and her attorneys, Ethan Dallas had been using Roblox since childhood and befriended a user known as Nate. Accounts differ on exactly when Ethan began playing — some descriptions say as early as age seven while the complaint describes him starting around age nine — but all say the relationship became close and continued over several years. The suit alleges Nate instructed Ethan how to disable Roblox parental controls, steered conversations to Discord, and then demanded sexually explicit photographs, threatening to share their messages publicly if Ethan refused. Ethan, who was autistic, told his mother in December 2023 that the messages had been weighing on him. Four months later he died by...