Roblox has been banned in Turkey

Roblox, the game creation and sharing platform that has a massive player base of kids and teenagers, has had its servers blocked in Turkey, effectively banning the game from being played within the country. The servers were blocked on August 7th, with affected users only receiving an explanation from Turkey’s Directorate of Communications the following day.

The primary concern as stated by the Turkish government was reports of sexual content that allegedly exploits children, as well as reports that the game was a gathering spot for pedophiles. There were also reports that robux, the in-game currency, was being distributed to underage players by bots to encourage their participation in the sexual content. According to reports, a similar tactic was being used to encourage underage players to participate in in-game gambling.

An official from the Directorate of Communications said that it was Roblox’s failure to moderate these occurrences, and its lack of effective preventative measures, that ultimately led them to implement the nationwide ban. However, some sources have also reported that the “promotion of homosexuality” is also on the list of reasons, so there is a possibility that some of the reported “sexual content” may be user-made LGBTQIA+ content purposely mislabelled as sexual in an attempt to censor it.

LGBTQIA+ films, art, and communities have historically found themselves the target of Turkey’s censorship efforts, though it is hardly the only target. Turkey has banned other platforms in the past due to conflicting policies of allowable content and censorship, such as its ban on Instagram earlier this month. It has also banned YouTube, Wikipedia, Facebook, and Threads at various points in time.

In a statement, Roblox responded to the ban. “On Aug 7, we learned that Roblox was blocked in Türkiye, and we are currently working with local authorities with the goal of resolving it. We are mindful that millions of people use our platform in Türkiye every day, including a vibrant community of developers whose businesses are built on Roblox. We’re committed to doing everything we can to keep our community safe, and we share global policymakers’ commitment to protecting children.”