Health themed Roblox items violate Geneva Conventions

You will not see any hospital using the Red Cross unless it qualifies very specifically under the terms of the Geneva Conventions.

4 Likes

Actually there aren’t because they all have to remove it

5 Likes

This feels like a pedantic issue and not impactful at all to fix, I would rather Roblox staff spend their time elsewhere.

24 Likes

It’s specifically a red cross on a white background. So your last two images are not in violation. However, I wish to point out that the Geneva Conventions does not apply to civilians in peace time.

The red cross symbol becomes very important during war and armed conflict because it means that’s a place where people can be safe, receive medical aid, food, shelter, etc… It’s neutral and violation of that is a war crime. My initial reaction was this was bogus bug report. But after doing some research, I see the importance of it and why it’s protected by international treaty.

Furthermore, you can be fined and go to jail for not using it correctly. So the United States does take this very seriously.

On an unrelated note, I discovered that the ICRC is encouraging people to conform to Geneva Conventions when playing combat games. This would include the international rules of engagement.

5 Likes

This is fair, since I don’t know the Red Cross to just sue everyone like Nintendo does. Even if it is a low priority, I still think it is good to at least bring up and have in the backlog since it is a potential trademark issue. It would also be a sign to others to not use the symbol as well.

8 Likes

The Red Cross routinely enforces this, especially against video games. It’s not a “trademark issue” it’s literally a legal provision of the Geneva Conventions that the Red Cross symbol is restricted.

5 Likes

Hey there! It’s been nearly a year since this was reported. Have there been any updates on this issue?

2 Likes

This isnt really an issue. Like the whole half life series literally uses a red cross with a white background in their medkits and health stations and they’ve never had issues.

so unless they do something i dont think gabe is going to jail

6 Likes

For anyone still keeping track of this issue, the Emergency Rations gear (reported by OP) is now Geneva Convention compliant.

The Emergency Rations Roblox gear, displaying a green medical cross and the following labels: "EMERGENCY RATION" and "USE COIN ON CORNER AND TWIST."

4 Likes

Thank you for flagging this. We updated all the textures for the abovementioned items. Please let us know if anything was missed.

7 Likes

Appreciate the update! Was talking with a friend about this, and we realized there’s still an official Roblox asset which uses the Red Cross. Back in the first few years of Roblox, they used to include common assets with your install of the Roblox Player, such as brickbattle tool icons. One of those icons was MedKit.png, an image of the Red Cross.

These days the Roblox engine reads anything pointing to those original local files and loads images uploaded to Roblox’s account. I believe rbxasset://Textures/MedKit.png currently points to this asset here.

MedKit.png Asset Link

4 Likes

The gear icons seem to still be the old ones.
13319305
75322835
97765550
They should be edited to fit the new textures (the icons also violate the geneva convention)

7 Likes

First off violating Geneva Convention is illegal, secondly it probably took like 15 minutes to recolor these textures and different people are responsible for fixing bugs in the client and changing textures of items.

This doesn’t affect development in the client or anything else, the catalog team is completely independent and only works on the catalog.

2 Likes

I dont know if models are managed here on catalog asset bugs

fortnite has a red cross on im unsure on the rules as its extremely low key, as in your the first person in the world to bring this up on roblox. This report is important as its violating it, but also i dont know how much more this team changes

This doesnt relate to them bug fixes its catalog only but also there are many bugs in the catalog team as well roblox continues to ignore but fixes stuff like this so i get how this could cause questions ?

Also cant it still be used as long as it isnt violence or a logo for a miltary group for example ? medkit for example is known for a red cross by millions of records, im unsure on this all but im glad roblox changed them ?

Fortnite does not have a red cross, it’s white.

I remember Among Us having a red cross years ago but they changed it as soon as they found out it’s illegal

The medkits in Subnautica used to be white with a red cross on them; they were later changed to being a white cross on green as it is today.

1 Like

Just came across this. If there are others, do you mind submitting a report for them? Please make sure you include links to the item.

Thank you.

2 Likes

Report has been submitted.

2 Likes

This topic was automatically closed 14 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.