Instagram, Facebook, and the child exploitation MDL

Find Out If Your Family Has a Case

Free, confidential review by Attorney Matthew T. Marin. Answered by you, the parent or guardian. Prefer to talk? Call (888) 348-2735.

Super Lawyers® 2014–2024CALL 24/7(888) 348-2735

Roblox Lawsuit — Free, Confidential Case Review

Did it spread to Instagram or Facebook?

Cross-platform contact strengthens — not weakens — a family’s case. Here is how the Meta claims fit in.

ACTIVE LITIGATION — NO SETTLEMENT. MDL 3166 underway · filing deadlines vary by state.

Was your child — or a child in your care — contacted or harmed by an adult through Roblox?

Check if my family has a casefree · confidential · takes 2 minutes
I’m not sure what happened →

No documents needed · confidential · an answer either way · no fee unless there is a recovery. Court costs and litigation expenses are advanced by counsel and repaid from the recovery. You are not responsible for court costs or litigation expenses if there is no recovery, unless a court directs otherwise. The attorney’s fee is a percentage of the gross recovery, calculated before expenses are deducted.

Or talk to a person now: (888) 348-2735 — answered 24/7

Stefanie A. Murphy & Matthew T. Marin

Partners

Every Roblox inquiry gets a personal review — and an honest answer either way, free and without obligation.

Claims are brought against Roblox Corporation and, where the facts support it, other platforms — not against your family. Conversations are confidential. Some matters may be referred to other lawyers. No settlement has been reached, and most cases are in their earliest stages; every case must be proven on its own facts. Attorney Advertising.

Meta Platforms, Inc. — the company behind Instagram and Facebook — is one of four defendants identified in the December 12, 2025 order creating MDL 3166, the federal multidistrict litigation over child sexual exploitation connected to Roblox and related platforms. That litigation is separate from MDL 3047, the social media adolescent addiction MDL, which is about compulsive-use design rather than predator contact. Different cases, different theories, different judges. Everything alleged in either litigation remains an allegation; no court has found Meta or any other platform liable.

Two MDLs, two different theories

The confusion is understandable, because both cases sit in the same courthouse and both name Meta.

MDL 3166 — In re: Roblox Corporation Child Sexual Exploitation and Assault Litigation — was created by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation on December 12, 2025 and assigned to Chief Judge Richard Seeborg in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The panel’s order names Roblox Corporation, Discord Inc., Snap Inc., and Meta Platforms, Inc. The claims concern minors who, plaintiffs allege, were targeted and groomed by adult predators through Roblox, with the exploitation continuing on other services including Instagram.

MDL 3047 — In re: Social Media Adolescent Addiction/Personal Injury Products Liability Litigation, docket 4:22-md-03047 — was centralized on October 6, 2022 in the same district, before Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers. Those claims allege that platform features were designed to maximize screen time in ways that encourage addictive behavior in adolescents. They are not predator-contact claims.

The Judicial Panel drew the line itself. In a June 3, 2026 order, the Panel declined to move a case into either MDL, explaining that MDL 3166 concerns minors allegedly sexually exploited by predators on Roblox, while MDL 3047 concerns platform features alleged to encourage addictive use. The Panel treated the two as addressing different conduct.

What MDL 3166 alleges about Meta’s platforms

Within MDL 3166, Instagram appears in the same structural role as Discord and Snapchat: as a service where contact that allegedly began on Roblox continued. The Panel’s transfer order describes minors allegedly groomed through Roblox with the exploitation continuing on Discord, Snapchat, Instagram, or by cellular communications.

That framing matters because it shapes what a Meta-related claim in this litigation looks like. It is not a claim about how much time a child spent on Instagram, or about content recommendations, or about body image. It is a claim about an adult using one platform to reach a child and another to continue the contact.

Meta disputes the allegations against it. No court has ruled on the platforms’ threshold defenses in MDL 3166, including Section 230.

Where the litigation stands

As of August 2026, approximately 177 cases are pending in MDL 3166 before Chief Judge Richard Seeborg in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The litigation is in active discovery, and no ruling has issued on the platforms’ threshold defenses, including Section 230.

The docket has been active through 2026: preservation orders governing evidence, a consolidated guardian ad litem framework for minor plaintiffs, and a set of arbitration bellwether complaints filed July 28, 2026 that test whether certain claims must go to arbitration rather than court. These are procedural questions about how and where cases proceed, not decisions about whether any child was harmed.

No court has found Roblox or any other platform liable in these cases, and there is no settlement of families’ individual claims. The federal litigation is in its early stages, and every family’s case depends on its own facts.

Why the distinction matters for a family

Practically, it determines which litigation, if any, a set of facts belongs to — and the two are screened differently.

If an adult contacted your child in a game and the conversation moved to Instagram or Facebook Messenger, the relevant facts are the ones MDL 3166 concerns: where contact began, the child’s age when it began, what occurred, and what documentation exists. If your concern is compulsive use, sleep, or attention, that is the territory of the separate addiction litigation, and it is evaluated on entirely different grounds by different counsel.

Conflating them tends to produce two bad outcomes: a family with a contact case being told about an addiction case, or the reverse. Being precise about what actually happened is the single most useful thing a parent can bring to a first conversation.

What a parent can check and preserve

Instagram and Facebook retain more account history than most services, which works in a family’s favor. Under account settings, Meta offers a “Download Your Information” tool that returns a copy of messages, followers and following lists, and login history. Instagram’s Supervision tools show accounts a teen follows and who follows them, and allow a parent to see who a teen has reported.

Three rules apply regardless of platform. Preserve — do not delete conversations, accounts, or devices before copies exist. Don’t confront — messaging the other account reliably produces deletions and lost records. Report — the NCMEC CyberTipline at report.cybertip.org or 1-800-843-5678, and local law enforcement, accept reports directly; reporting neither requires nor waits on a lawyer.

You do not need to ask your child to recount what happened in order to take any of these steps.

Families generally may pursue claims on behalf of a minor through a parent or legal guardian. Deadlines vary substantially by state and by claim type, and some states’ deadlines are short. These platforms were built to feel safe. You could not have known what was happening inside a game.

Marin & Murphy Law Firm is currently reviewing Roblox-related claims for families nationwide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Attorney Advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.