The mother of a 15-year-old California boy who took his own life is now suing Roblox and Discord over his death, alleging her son was groomed and coerced to send explicit images on the apps.

Rebecca Dallas filed the lawsuit Friday in San Francisco County Superior Court accusing the companies of “recklessly and deceptively operating their business in a way that led to the sexual exploitation and suicide” of Ethan Dallas.

Ethan was a “bright, imaginative boy who loved gaming, streaming and interacting with friends online,” the lawsuit states. He started playing on the online gaming platform Roblox around the age of 9, with his parents’ approval and with parental controls in place. When he was 12, he was targeted by “an adult sex predator” who posed as a child on Roblox and befriended Ethan, attorneys for Rebecca Dallas said in a statement.

What started out as innocent conversation “gradually escalated to sexual topics and explicit exchanges,” the complaint says.

After a while, the man encouraged Ethan to turn off parental controls and move their conversations to Discord, the lawyers said.

On Discord, the man “increasingly demanded explicit photographs and videos” and threatened Ethan that he’d post or share the images. Ethan complied out of fear, the complaint says.

“Tragically, Ethan was permanently harmed and haunted by these experiences, and he died by suicide at the age of 15,” the complaint said. He died in April 2024, according to an online obituary.

The lawsuit accuses Roblox and Discord of wrongful death, fraudulent concealment and misrepresentations, negligent misrepresentation, and strict liability.

It argues that had Roblox and Discord taken steps to screen users before allowing them on apps, or implemented age and identity verification and other safety measures, “Ethan would have never interacted with this predator, never suffered he harm that he did, and never died by suicide.”

Apps not safe for kids, suit says

Dallas, of San Diego County, thought both platforms were safe for her son to use to communicate with friends while gaming, given how the apps marketed themselves and the parental controls she set, the suit contended.

Roblox is used daily by 111 million people, according to its website, offering a variety of games, obstacle courses, and the ability to chat with other users. It is free to make an account and there is no age minimum, nor required age verification.

Discord, launched in 2015, is a communications platform commonly used by gamers who want to chat or video chat while playing video games. The suit said that the app doesn’t verify age or identity.

The suit claims Roblox allowed Ethan to turn off the parental controls and Discord allowed him to create an account and communicate with adults without any parental oversight. It said that while Roblox states children must have parental permission to sign up, “nothing prevents them from creating their own accounts and playing on Roblox.”

The suit alleges the two apps misrepresented safety on their platforms, saying the design of the apps “makes children easy prey for pedophiles” due to a lack of safeguards and predator screening.

After Ethan’s tragic death, his family learned from law enforcement that the man who groomed him had been arrested in Florida “for sexually exploiting other children through Defendants’ apps,” the complaint said.

Today, Roblox’s default settings do not allow adults to directly message children under the age of 13, but children can still create accounts with fake birth dates giving them full access to direct-messaging options, the complaint said.

“We are deeply saddened by this tragic loss. While we cannot comment on claims raised in litigation, we always strive to hold ourselves to the highest safety standard,” a spokesperson for Roblox told NBC News.

Roblox said it is designed with “rigorous built in safety features” and is “continually innovating new safety features — over 100 this year alone — that protect our users and empower parents and caregivers with greater control and visibility.”

Safety efforts include processes to detect and act on problematic behaviors and 24/7 human moderation. Roblox added that the company partners with law enforcement and leading child safety and mental health organizations worldwide to combat the sexual exploitation of children.

While Discord has settings to keep minors safe such as automatically scanning messages for explicit images and videos, the suit said Discord is “overflowing with sexually explicit images and videos involving children, including anime and child sex abuse material.”

Discord said it doesn’t comment on legal matters but said the platform is “deeply committed to safety.”

“We require all users to be at least 13 to use our platform. We use a combination of advanced technology and trained safety teams to proactively find and remove content that violates our policies,” a spokesperson said. “We maintain strong systems to prevent the spread of sexual exploitation and grooming on our platform and also work with other technology companies and safety organizations to improve online safety across the internet.”

Other allegations against Roblox, Discord

Anapol Weiss, the firm that filed Dallas’ suit, noted this is the ninth lawsuit it has filed in connection with allegations that children were groomed, exploited or assaulted after contact on Roblox or related platforms.

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation in 2024 complied a “Dirty Dozen” list of mainstream entitles it says facilitate, enable and profit from sexual abuse and exploitation. It included Discord, saying “this platform is popular with predators seeking to groom kids and with creeps looking to create, trade or find sexually abusive content of children and unsuspecting adults,” and Roblox, saying children are exposed to sex-themed games and exposed to predators.

An NBC News investigation in 2023 found 35 cases over the six years prior in which adults were prosecuted on charges of kidnapping, grooming or sexual assault that allegedly involved communications on Discord.

In August, Louisiana’s top prosecutor sued Roblox, alleging that its failure to implement strong safety protocols for children has made it “the perfect place for pedophiles.”

“This case lays bare the devastating consequences when billion-dollar platforms knowingly design environments that enable predators to prey on vulnerable children,” said Alexandra Walsh, a partner at Anapol Weiss. “These companies are raking in billions. Children are paying the price.”

Dallas seeks a jury trial and compensatory damages.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988, or go to 988lifeline.org, to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. You can also call the network, previously known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 800-273-8255, or visit SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources.

This was a classic clash of boxing styles, with Font working behind his smooth jab and trying to pressure, while Martinez was constantly launching heaters, whether he was throwing punches or kicks. In all three rounds, the UFC sophomore landed at a much better clip, and towards the end of the fight, “Doctor” sat Font down, sending the crowd into a raucous ovation that made it impossible to hear the final horn.

When the scores were collected and read, it was Martinez that came out on top, earning the biggest win of his career, and giving native-born Mexican athletes a perfect 5-0 record on the evening. This was a massive win for the first-year bantamweight, who stepped in on short notice after originally being scheduled to open the main card, and instantly stamps him as person of interest in the 135-pound weight class.

LONDON — A London march organized by far-right activist Tommy Robinson drew more than 110,000 people and became unruly on Saturday as a small group of his supporters clashed with police officers who were separating them from counterprotesters.

Several officers were punched, kicked and struck by bottles tossed by people at the fringes of the “Unite the Kingdom” rally, Metropolitan Police said. Reinforcements with helmets and riot shields were deployed to support the 1,000-plus officers on duty.

Twenty-six police officers were injured — four who were seriously hurt, including broken teeth and a concussion, a possible broken nose and a spinal injury. At least 25 people were arrested for offenses including violent disorder, assaults and criminal damage, and the investigation continues, police said.

“There is no doubt that many came to exercise their lawful right to protest, but there were many who came intent on violence,” Assistant Commissioner Matt Twist said. “They confronted officers, engaging in physical and verbal abuse and making a determined effort to breach cordons in place to keep everyone safe.”

The rally drew an estimated crowd of between 110,000 and 150,000 people, far surpassing expectations, police said. The rival “March Against Fascism” protest organized by Stand Up To Racism had about 5,000 marchers.

Tommy Robinson speaks during the Unite the Kingdom march and rally near Westminster, London, on Saturday.

Joanna Chan/AP

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Joanna Chan/AP

Anti-migrant theme

Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, founded the nationalist and anti-Islam English Defense League and is one of the most influential far-right figures in Britain.

The march was billed as a demonstration in support of free speech — with much of the rhetoric by influencers and several far-right politicians from across Europe aimed largely at the perils of migration, a problem much of the continent is struggling to control.

“We are both subject to the same process of the great replacement of our European people by peoples coming from the south and of Muslim culture, you and we are being colonized by our former colonies,” far-right French politician Eric Zemmour said.

Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO and owner of the X platform who has waded into British politics several times this year, was beamed in by video and condemned the left-leaning U.K. government.

“There’s something beautiful about being British and what I see happening here is a destruction of Britain, initially a slow erosion, but rapidly increasing erosion of Britain with massive uncontrolled migration,” he said.

Robinson told the crowd in a hoarse voice that migrants now had more rights in court than the “British public, the people that built this nation.”

The marches come at a time when the U.K. has been divided by debate over migrants crossing the English Channel in overcrowded inflatable boats to arrive on shore without authorization.

Numerous anti-migrant protests were held this summer outside hotels housing asylum-seekers following the arrest of an Ethiopian man who was later convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in a London suburb. Some of those protests became violent and led to arrests.

Sea of flags

Participants in the “Unite the Kingdom” march carried the St. George’s red-and-white flag of England and the union jack, the state flag of the United Kingdom, and chanted “we want our country back.”

U.K. flags have proliferated this summer across the U.K. — at events and on village lampposts — in what some have said is a show of national pride and others said reflects a tilt toward nationalism.

Supporters held signs saying “stop the boats,” “send them home,” and “enough is enough, save our children.”

At the counterprotest, the crowd held signs saying “refugees welcome” and “smash the far right,” and shouted “stand up, fight back.”

Robinson supporters chanted crude refrains about U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, leader of the center-left Labour Party and also shouted messages of support for slain U.S. conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

Several speakers paid tribute to Kirk, who was remembered in a moment of silence, followed by a bagpiper playing “Amazing Grace.”

One demonstrator held a sign saying: “Freedom of speech is dead. RIP Charlie Kirk.”

Crowd covered blocks of London

The crowd at one point stretched from Big Ben across the River Thames and around the corner beyond Waterloo train station, a distance of about three-quarters of a mile (around a kilometer).

The marches had been mostly peaceful, but toward the late afternoon, “Unite the Kingdom” supporters threw items at the rival rally and tried to break through barriers set up to separate the groups, police said. Officers had to use force to keep a crowd-control fence from being breached.

Counterprotesters heckled a man with blood pouring down his face who was being escorted by police from the group of Robinson supporters. It wasn’t immediately clear what happened to him.

While the crowd was large, it fell far short of the one of the biggest recent marches when a pro-Palestinian rally drew an estimated 300,000 people in November 2023.

Robinson had planned a “Unite the Kingdom” rally last October, but couldn’t attend after being jailed for contempt of court for violating a 2021 High Court order barring him from repeating libelous allegations against a Syrian refugee who successfully sued him. He previously served jail time for assault and mortgage fraud.