The online gaming platform Roblox has been banned in Russia, according to a report from Russian state media.
Roblox is a user-generated content platform where players can create and share their own games and experiences, similar to Minecraft. The platform hosts various interest-based and affinity communities, including military roleplaying games and LGBTQ solidarity groups. But Russia has laws designating public LGBTQ advocacy as “extremist activity.“
According to a translation of an article in TASS, a state-owned Russian news agency, Russia’s communications agency cited the presence of LGBTQ content on the platform as one of the reasons behind the ban.
Roblox did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment on the ban this afternoon.
The ban comes as Roblox faces broader safety and moderation challenges. Recent reports have highlighted how the platform exposed some of its underage users to child predators. In the U.S., Roblox has faced legal probes from the attorneys general in Texas and Louisiana. Roblox has since introduced age checks and content moderation tools aimed at keeping children safe — beginning in January, the company plans to implement mandatory facial verification to access Roblox’s chat features. (However, facial verification technology comes with safety concerns of its own.)
Roblox has also asked developers to flag experiences that “are primarily themed on a sensitive social, political, or religious issue” so that the parents of users under 13 years old can decide if their children can access that content. This sparked backlash from advocacy groups like Out Making Games, Women in Games, and BAME in Games, which represent minority groups in the gaming industry. In an open letter, the groups wrote that Roblox considered topics like “pay equity in sports” to be “sensitive.”
“While parental controls serve an important purpose, they shouldn’t come at the expense of fundamental human dignity,” the letter said. “We are calling on Roblox to reconsider these guidelines and find ways to protect young users without legitimizing discrimination or silencing important voices.”
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According to Appfigures, an app intelligence firm, Roblox was installed an estimated 70 million times in Russia on mobile, with about 8 million downloads so far this year.
