Rebecca Dallas sued Roblox and Discord for the suicide of her 15-year-old son.
In September 2025, Rebecca Dallas sued Roblox and Discord for the suicide of her 15-year-old son.
Dallas filed the lawsuit in San Francisco County Superior Court, stating that both companies were responsible for “recklessly and deceptively operating their business in a way that led to the sexual exploitation and suicide” of her son, Ethan.
In court documents, Ethan was described as a “bright, imaginative boy who loved gaming, streaming and interacting with friends online.” He began playing Roblox games at the age of 9 with careful monitoring through the parental control features.
Dallas truly believed that both Roblox and Discord were safe for her son to use to communicate and game with friends given the controls she set. However, at age 12, Ethan Dallas was targeted by an adult sexual predator disguised as another child.
Conversations about gameplay and innocent chatroom banter escalated in severity until the messages became sexually explicit. Soon, the predator pushed Ethan to turn off his parental controls and communicate through Discord.
On Discord, Ethan was pressured to send explicit photographs and videos to the unknown man. If he did not comply, he was threatened with exposure. In April of 2024, “Ethan was permanently harmed and haunted by these experiences, and he died by suicide at the age of 15,” the complaint stated.
After the tragedy, law enforcement let Ethan’s family know that the predator who groomed him had been arrested in Florida “for sexually exploiting other children through [Roblox and Discord].”
The lawsuit accuses both Roblox and Discord of wrongful death, fraudulent concealment and misrepresentations, negligent misrepresentation and strict liability. Rebecca Dallas believes that if both platforms had stricter screening and verification processes, “Ethan would have never interacted with this predator, never suffered the harm that he did, and never died by suicide.”
Authors: Andy Goldwasser and Alexis Kabat
