- Move comes shortly after Instagram was barred in the country
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Update 2: Following the decision to block access to Roblox in Turkey, the country’s minister of justice has released a statement on X (formerly known as Twitter) to provide details on the matter.
He said the platform had been blocked by the Adana 6th Criminal Court of Peace following an investigation carried out by the Adana chief public prosecutor’s office in relation to content that could lead to child exploitation.
“It is everyone’s duty to look out for, protect and support the best interests of our children,” he said (as translated by Google).
Turkiye Today reports a directorate of communications official has also made a statement on the matter. They highlighted further reasons for the ban, again stating concerns over content that could exploit children, the promotion of homosexuality through virtual parties, and claims that Robux had been distributed through bot accounts to encourage children to engage in these activities.
It also cited insufficient oversight to address issues that were reported to it.
We’ve reached out to Roblox and the directorate of communications for more details.
Update 1: A Roblox spokesperson has confirmed that Roblox is currently inaccessible in Turkey but provided no reason for why it was blocked.
“We are aware that Roblox is currently not available in Türkiye and have reached out to the relevant authorities to ascertain why and ensure we are back online as soon as possible,” said the spokesperson.
“Our focus is always on safety and civility as we bring people together to build, learn, play and explore and we do this in a way that respects the laws and regulations where we operate.”
Original story: Turkey has blocked access in the country to popular online games platform Roblox.
Mobidictum and Turkiye Today reported that the game was blocked on Wednesday, August 7th, though no reason has been given publicly.
The move comes days after the country’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) announced photo and video sharing social network Instagram would also be blocked.
Turkish Minute said government officials had accused the platform of censorship and failing to remove ‘offensive’ posts.
Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu also posted the news on X (formerly known as X), calling the move to make Roblox inaccessible “incomprehensible”.
Roblox in numbers
According to AppMagic estimates, since January 2015, Roblox has accumulated 41.3 million downloads and made $37.5m from player spending across the App Store and Google Play in Turkey. The country is said to have a population of approximately 85m people.
Roblox recently reported its Q2 2024 earnings, revealing that it had 79.5m daily active users worldwide, a rise of 21% year-over-year.
The company generated $893.5m in total revenue last quarter, up 31% Y/Y, while bookings rose by 22% Y/Y to $955.2m. The firm posted a net loss of $207m.
