Roblox banned in Russia, local media says

The web gaming platform Roblox has been banned in Russia, based on a report from Russian state media.

Roblox is a user-generated content platform where players can create and share their very own games and experiences, much like 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.“

In accordance with 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 certainly one of the explanations behind the ban.

Roblox didn’t reply 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 a few of its underage users to child predators. Within 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 toward keeping children protected — starting in January, the corporate plans to implement mandatory facial verification to access Roblox’s chat features. (Nevertheless, 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” in order that the parents of users under 13 years old can resolve 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 within 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 a very important purpose, they shouldn’t come on the expense of fundamental human dignity,” the letter said. “We’re calling on Roblox to reconsider these guidelines and find ways to guard young users without legitimizing discrimination or silencing essential voices.”

In accordance with Appfigures, an app intelligence firm, Roblox was installed an estimated 70 million times in Russia on mobile, with about 8 million downloads thus far this yr.