Roblox swept up in new Turkish social media crackdown
The country has come down heavily on many sites
- Roblox has been blocked in Turkiye, in the latest social media crackdown
- A number of sites have been unceremoniously blocked in the country
- Turkish authorities have come down heavily on a number of sites
If you're a Turkish Roblox player, then today is probably a bleak one for you. That's because Turkish authorities have unceremoniously blocked access to the popular gaming platform. The reasons given, after a period of uncertainty, included some pretty serious claims levied at the platform; for the moment it seems the ban is all but permanent.
As our sister site PocketGamer.biz reported, Wednesday 7th saw the platform restricted for visitors from Turkiye. No reason was given until a response was provided late in the day that levied charges of child exploitation and other serious issues that Turkish authorities didn't feel were being properly addressed by the platform holders.
The decision to block the site, however, comes during a year when Turkiye and its censorship of the internet has come under heavy scrutiny. It also comes with the most recent, major move being a seeming block on services like VPNs.
While the reasons, and accusations, levied against Roblox are serious, they aren't necessarily without merit. The company's attempts to moderate the platform, given the tens of millions of users, have often met with criticism. So it's possible that while the timing of this ban may be unsavoury, this potential action has been brewing for a while.
It's not clear what Roblox will be able to do to alleviate the ban, if anything, especially given that the platform has faced these criticisms before with responses up to and including legal action by those who feel it doesn't do enough to moderate.
You might even post that the recent move to attract brands trying to appeal to a more mature audience (like the recently added Hugo Boss experience) is part of an attempt to alleviate the pressure of moderation for younger users. Still, for fans of Roblox in Turkiye, it's cold comfort either way.
