Not releasing games in a certain country because of political views is not revoking press freedom? It is more of a protest in support of press freedom? I won’t release a game in China because I do not agree with their government and human rights offenses.
Pretty sure the Chinese government regulations wouldn’t let a game say that Taiwan is an independent country…
Taiwan don’t you mean China, comrade?
I get your point. But then the country that you don’t publish your game on (since you are afraid of ban etc.) wins. You know why? Because that’s their goal, make people not criticize it.
If journalists stop writing about human rights violations because they “don’t agree with breaking human rights”, who would win? The country/people committing the atrocities or the journalists? This is the goal: Make people stop writing about it.
What happens then? People forget about and can’t hear about what’s happening.
Summary: If I use my metaphor of journalists: If journalists stop writing about bad things governments are doing as a protest against it. No one will hear of it, that’s the dream scenario for governments all over the world.
I’m not afraid of being banned from Chinese markets.
Roblox games are not journalism. They are not criticism of the Chinese government. They are games and do not usually have any political messaging in them (the target audience is children who don’t even understand that type of stuff). They exist to entertain people, and generate revenue for the developer.
Unfortunately, this means that the Chinese government will also be indirectly benefiting if I release a successful Roblox game in their market, and that is the reason (along with a ton of restrictions I’m too lazy to implement) I will not release any games in China.
Good points, my arguments were pretty baseless if I think about it now.
Hello from Hong Kong. Our friends have just received a warning from “offensive, inappropriate content” from the song Glory to Hong Kong, composed last year in light of related social events. It is by no ways violating the Community Rules, and does not even include content that directly threatens the Chinese governing party (except the background itself)
Therefore we are now afraid that the Global Compliance System might have creeped into non-restricted regions (i.e. the non-QQ Roblox site), and that users globally, especially those from disputed regions, will not be able to express views freely in Roblox.
We understand the “IsSubjectToChinaPolicies” bool exists - if so, as to keep the UX unchanged in other regions, why not go an extra mile and introduce “regional ban” on certain risky assets instead?
The Hong Kong Roblox community is currently very concerned on this incident. While we are not comfortable to publish any more assets in view of this flag, please do enlighten us. Thanks!
This doesn’t really have much to do with this announcement. The goal of this announcement is to let people know that in the future, they will be able to reach a broader portion of the world by implementing this API.
For mistakingly taken down assets you should just appeal them through Support, assuming you haven’t done so already.
Yes - I believe our affected friend has filed a complaint against this action. I commented just because we are afraid if such actions are related to any new UGC filtering measures against sensitive information to Chinese policies. Hopefully this will not be the case.
Thanks for the quick response!
From my knowledge, Roblox bans all songs related to nationalism, protests, or other controversial events.
ROBLOX is platform for sharing and expressing creativity no matter the cause. Not a place to choose sides.
I’m not Roblox or have any idea why they would have done it, but it was probably to keep the platform neutral. (and fun for everyone! 
)
So China can only create a derivative of my game if I choose to publish my game to the Chinese market?
I’d imagine that there’d be a way to locally change what needs to be changed for per-player configs
The song “Glory to Hong Kong” is a literal call to arms for a revolution/protest which as devolved into a violent street brawl. Anyone who has taken the time to read the lyrics of this song and witnessed the devastation in the streets would know.
As seen here in section 11 of the “Roblox Community Rules”
Roblox doesn’t want to have content on here that promotes that type of activity.
Doesn’t matter what side of the argument you are on, we shouldn’t really be trying to use roblox as a political platform and then come blaming the website for not wanting to be associated with this type of content.
Keep your politics off of roblox please.
Couldn’t have said it better myself! Totally agree with your statement.
Also thanks for linking Roblox’s community rules, I never actually took the time to read it lol. I guess I can officially say that I have read a part of it now.
This isn’t the post for that. This is about the global compliance system.
What if a game is hosted on Roblox that China doesn’t like? China has a reputation of trying to get companies to tow their line (Blizzard, NBA etc.). What if China demands that it get taken down? Like there are plenty of Tiananmen Square games if you know where to find them. What happens to them?
(as far as I’m aware)
Any Roblox game that wishes to be hosted on the Chinese Roblox must go through manual approval. Questionable games will not show up here since Roblox themselves did not approve the game to appear on the Chinese platform
Roblox themselves are considered a UGC based platform (other examples include YouTube and Twitch), so if a questionable game does pop up in the Chinese market (somehow). The creator of the game is held responsible, not Roblox.
Roblox’s only responsibility is to remove the game from the platform and moderate the creator of said game.
So, the main reason I came to this article is because I wanted to get the list of policies that China has. I came from here because this referenced it:
So if this is an infinite loop of going back and forth between links, when will we get a list of do’s and don’ts?
Very soon interestingly enough means over 5 months.
Please give us a nice list when possible, so that developers can earn more (and in turn YOU earn more too.)
Happy coding!
IANAL; however, this is the problematic clause for me. If I own a place that does not have “Allow Copying” enabled, and I want to make my game available in China, will Chinese users (or the Chinese government) (or the Chinese publisher) be allowed to take ownership of my content.
If so, there is no way I would ever consider marketing my game in any country under those terms. Also, Roblox should probably update the text around the “Allow Copying” checkbox to indicate that the game actually can be copied or modified if the owner has also selected for the game to be marketed in certain countries.
Any update on the guide that is going to be published “very soon”?
