By: Zachary Abbott
Increasingly, governments across the globe have focused their attention on online services that do not take sufficient precautions to protect children from harmful content. These efforts have been aimed at social media services like Instagram and TikTok, and have been most recently aimed at online games. One country has taken the extraordinary step of banning these services entirely.
On August 7th, the Turkish government’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK), announced that it was banning the game Roblox. Roblox is free to play and massively popular, particularly with children and teens, with over 500 million downloads. Roughly 40% of Roblox’s estimated 77 million daily players are under age 13. Roblox is played entirely online and provides users with access to the Roblox Studio, where they can create their own games or play games that have been designed by other users. Roblox consists of over 40 million user-designed games. Many of these games offer in-game purchases using Roblox’s in-game currency, “Robux,” which can be purchased with real money outside the game. Many of the individual games allow direct player-to-player interaction through in-game messaging, and there is an optional live voice messaging function.
The Turkish government stated in its official announcement on X (formerly Twitter) that it was banning Roblox based on prevalent reports of sexual exploitation, pedophilia, exploitation of children, and lack of content oversight. The claims of child exploitation arise from Roblox’s model where children create content for Roblox without pay, or for “Robux,” while the company keeps the profits.
Similar accusations against Roblox have been made in the past. Bloomberg reported recently that Roblox had reported over 13,000 in-game incidents to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and that 24 predators have been arrested for grooming and abuse through the game. A group of U.S. parents have filed a lawsuit against Roblox claiming inadequate safety precautions and exposure of children to explicit content.
Although Turkey has now lifted its recent Instagram ban, there has been no news about lifting the ban on Roblox. Roblox has explained that they are working with local authorities to lift the ban, and that they wish to help all of their players and developers (many of which have careers based around the app) to get back online, and back to playing. Currently, there has not been much political interest in banning or restricting Roblox in the U.S., but this could change as further accusations come to light.
The post Turkey Bans Roblox, Claims Popular Online Game Exploits Children and Shows Them Explicit Content first appeared on The Source.
The post Turkey Bans Roblox, Claims Popular Online Game Exploits Children and Shows Them Explicit Content appeared first on The Source.
