Introduction:
Before speculation arises, this topic isn’t meant as a taunt against Roblox Turkish Developers. I can very well imagine that it sucks for Developers and Users of Roblox in Turkey not to be able to access their platform of choice due to a government embargo.
That being said, I hope more countries take on Turkey’s initiative. Here’s the why of my opinion
Turkey’s embargo against Roblox:
I have been on the platform since January 2013, it’s my experience that Roblox has never been proactive in handling moderation. This is regarding rampant predatory exploits by groomers and the proliferation of sexual content on the platform.
What’s worse, the proactive measures taken by Roblox happens after negative press is publicized. In the earlier case, a court in Turkey ruled for a country-wide ban against Roblox.
Inconveniently for Roblox, their stock went down two whole Dollars on the same day as the embargo. Although you’re welcome to speculate for other reasons explaining the sharp drop.
One day later, Roblox users are welcomed by a damage control article in the Roblox newsroom platform. Instead of alluding to new measure(s) to stop the ongoing grooming and sexual conduct problem on Roblox. The company chooses to praise itself for past efforts to combat the former. In other words, useless filler content.
Yes, I am aware that the Turks’ government is a corrupt authoritarian bunch. Its still noteworthy that a company bringing a positive effect to a crap economy is banned by the same government.
Roblox’s European debacle:
Do not think that Turkey’s ban is the only time where Roblox’s failed proactive moderation attracts governments’ attention. Earlier this year, Roblox was forced to better their moderation due to new European Union regulations.
What’s worth mentioning here is whilst the new EU regulations bring forth fantastic features to Roblox such as the lengthening of the appeal window and the elaborate Illegal Content Reporting feature (which proved far superior than the regular reporting feature), some may question why these features were not implemented earlier.
Because Roblox only needs to enforce this act upon European Users. Roblox deliberately chose to not implement the same rights the European Users now have for the entire Roblox player base. Effectively creating a class system where some users are better protected than other users because they happen to be born in a different country. This is courtesy of Roblox’s chief safety officer, Matt Kaufman:
Conclusion:
I hope with recent developments regarding Turkey, more countries will follow via hardening their regulations against online service providers like Roblox. I wouldn’t even care for more complete bans against Roblox because let’s face it here.