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Roblox argues 8-year-old waived rights in wrongful death lawsuit (www.courier-journal.com)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Can an 8-year-old waive their rights to sue a company by clicking a box?

That's the stance of Roblox, an online gaming platform that bills itself as a digital playground.

The argument comes as the $41-billion company is embroiled in a lawsuit with the family of a Northern Kentucky child whose death by suicide, her mother says, is related to use of the platform.

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[–] 13 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Is it their stance? The article says the mother “placed parental controls” on the child’s account. This means the mother had an account too and agreed to the terms as well.

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  • [–] 26 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    TOS can't protect a company from legal requirements, and I'm not clear on what the legal requirements are in terms of safeguarding and content moderation but my initial hunch is that they're very lackluster. I hope that the suit will bring attention to this issue with legislative bodies, but I suspect that's the most that can be realistically hoped for.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (1 child)

    That’s fine. All I’m saying is that the article claims that their stance is an eight year old can waive rights, while also claiming indirectly that the mother waived the rights too. Because it says that she placed parental controls on the account, which in the case of Roblox means she made an account for herself and agreed to the same terms.

    I have no idea whether the terms are enforceable or not. I’m only commenting on the article sensationalizing by making it look like the company says the 8 year old agreeing to their terms is enough.

    Although maybe one thing to add could be that the child could not have gotten access to chat either without the mother enabling it for her. The article makes it sound like children are immediately exposed to all sorts of things on Roblox but the reality is unverified accounts are heavily restricted, and for a child, the restrictions have to be disabled by a parent.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    Your points are well taken, but usually when responding to a lawsuit -- especially a big dollar suit against a deep-pocketed corporation with an army of attorneys -- the defending legal team will pile on every exonerating thing it can possibly think of, and continue to do so throughout the proceedings, because every single one is not just a chance to win but a chance to argue on appeal if they lose.

    So they will throw in whatever they can think of, because something somewhere might stick, and meanwhile everything they tack on is something else the plaintiffs have to address in their own filings, adding to the plaintiff's upfront cost of bringing the suit.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago

    Minors cannot be signatories to a contract. Nothing the parent does can change that.

    If someone agrees to unlawful contract terms, those terms have no legal force, and depending on the wording of the contract, it could potentially invalidate the whole contract (though there's usually fine print about separability that deals with that eventuality).

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