SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) – A new lawsuit filed against Roblox and Discord accuses the online gaming companies of causing the death of a 13-year-old Kentucky girl.
Wrongful death lawsuit filed by Annapol Weiss Law Firm It states that Audrey Hine committed suicide after months of “extreme manipulation and grooming” from users on Roblox and Discord.
The case, Seitz v. Roblox Corporation and Discord Inc., allege that Audrey was manipulated by a Roblox community “dedicated to glorifying violence and emulating notorious mass shootings such as Columbine.”
The lawyers claim that Roblox, despite multiple updates related to child safety, has failed to implement effective moderation or age verification systems. “The resulting trauma is horrific, from grooming to exploitation to actual abuse. In this case, a child lost her life. This has to stop,” attorney Alexandra Walsh said.
Headquartered in San Francisco, Discord is an app for gamers looking to communicate with each other while playing video games. Roblox, headquartered in San Mateo, touts its games to millions of users as “the ultimate virtual world that lets you create, share experiences with friends, and be anything you can imagine.”
The lawsuit states that Audrey was an avid Roblox user and relied heavily on the app for social interaction. She lived in Boone County, Kentucky, and started using the app when she was eight years old.
The lawsuit states that her mother set up parental controls on Audree’s Discord and Roblox accounts believing the controls would ensure her daughter’s safety.
Audree “has been a prime target of communities of violent extremists who prowl the app looking for socially isolated and vulnerable children. These include the True Crime Community, TCC, which worships a mass shooter and is intertwined with other violent and extremist ideologies. Through Roblox, Audree has been subjected to emotional manipulation and social pressure by other users, including TCC members,” the lawsuit states.
According to the lawsuit, TCC encouraged violence against others and self-harm.
Audrey also joined the messaging app Discord, where social pressure was amplified through various chat rooms called “servers,” the lawsuit states. She died in December 2024, one week after her thirteenth birthday.
Dozens of lawsuits have been filed against the two companies in recent years. Many parents of child victims said they didn’t know anything was wrong until it was too late.
The lawsuit filed on behalf of Audrey’s mother claims that if Discord and Roblox had effective age verification systems and parental controls, Audrey would still be alive.
“Defendants repeatedly refused to invest in basic safety features to protect against the kind of harm Audrey suffered, leaving parents without adequate safeguards. Without these measures, cultures of peer pressure and violence spread across Defendants’ platforms, driving increasingly impressionable young users to harm others and themselves,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit was filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.