Roblox gets banned indefinitely in Turkey over “child exploitation”
The Turkish government has blocked access to Roblox for users across the nation over concerns regarding “child exploitation”.
Broken clock moment for Erdy
Seriously.
Now let's do it everywhere.
Why? I don't know anything about the game, is it bad for kids?
They exploit kids for free labor among other things.
https://www.eurogamer.net/roblox-exploiting-young-game-developers-new-investigation-reports
It's bad and it's kids. Like, the game is no better if you doin't aim it at kids, but the fact they intentionally employ child labor as a gamified device is just disgusting.
At least he cares about Palestinians. Unlike Kamala. Mrs. “Shut up, I’m talking”.
You can do the right thing for the wrong reasons and this is a classic case. He’s an ethno-nationalist. Ask him how he feels about Kurdish minorities or the genocide of Armenians.
Tankie bullshit
You asked Joe Biden to step down and you got what you wanted. Good job, be happy.
Is this sarcasm? This feels like sarcasm.
most people are focusing on the free labour roblox is extracting from kids but from the article:
Further claims stated, according to Turkish media, that Roblox hosted virtual parties promoting pedophilia and that “robux,” the platform’s virtual currency, was being distributed by bot accounts to encourage children’s involvement in these activities, and excess presence of gambling sites and their predatory tactics.
so it looks like roblox was banned because of bad moderation in regards to gambling and sexual predators, both of which are massive issues of the platform. overall i think this is a good move which hopefully will push roblox to do better.
thanks for that. not gonna let the littles get on roblox until they are older
It is the single most difficult thing as a parent to put my foot down about. Or it was at first.
My son LOVES watching the YouTubers playing the (horribly developed) games and enjoys making pretend games based on what he watches (some of it, sometimes we have to skip a video). He has a lot of friends at school that play it.
I will not let my son play it. Minecraft? Sure. Minecraft has a very different system, plenty of it crap, but it's much easier to supervise and much less exploitive.
But he does let me know that he feels left out when his friends play it and he can't. He doesn't have any siblings, so I understand how it's difficult to lack that connection to peers. He has other ways he gets to connect - mine craft, local playgyms, events for children, sports.
As a parent part of the empathy is feeling that sadness that comes from his disappointment in not being allowed to play it. But I think he has started to understand as he's gotten a little older, that adults making money off of what a kid makes isn't nice, or fair, or safe.
Turkey did well here. I don't think we'll ever have something similar in the states, but I hope regulation can come about eventually.
I straight up told my kid that he will not be playing that game. So you're not alone out there and you're doing well by taking an interest in your child's activity and monitoring them appropriately. I wish more parents would do the same.
If he likes the idea of making games, just find a playlist of Godot or Unreal 5 game building on youtube. Most of that stuff can be done low-code, and would be perfect for someone who wants to click around and make something. It can be frustrating at first… but if you find something that actually works, I bet it’d click
There's also a block coding plugin for Godot now too!
https://github.com/endlessm/godot-block-coding
Perfect tool to get kids into game creation.
Damn, superstar. Save some A++ parenting for other people! Seriously, you must be raising a top-quality person...
I wish. There are things we have been unable to change, even with the assistance of a couple of child psychologists.
When he gets upset with other kids, particularly when they break rules, he is absolutely convinced he needs to be the executive of the rules and often hits or pushes the other kids.
He was doing it before my ex and I separated. It only seems to happen during the summer at the day care program, so it's likely something more going on there.
Kids are still humans, and honestly I have to remind myself I'm doing the best I can. Because if I knew a better way to do things, I'd be doing that instead.
To me it's not about raising a superstar, it's raising someone who shares my values, and is capable of caring for themselves as an adult. Socializing and play is the most vital part of childhood development, so I do everything I can there.
Yeah the same conversations have occurred in my household. I think you made the right choice here. I'm a huge gamer myself and developer, not on Roblox. Usually if anything it's me being the lenient one when it comes to games in our home, vice my wife. This is one that I did not allow from day 1 regardless of the age of the kid. It was apparent to be a bad apple to me from my initial looks at it, and has only proven that point over the years. I can't imagine though how hard it is for most parents who are not entrenched in that industry to navigate decisions like that.
Now do it everywhere else
Roblox is just knockoff exploitative gmod. Only reason it keeps going is because its free to download.
More annoyed it hasn't been banned or sued under other consumer protection laws.
You are smoking crack if you think Roblox is a gmod knockoff, but everything else, unfortunately, yeah. I played Roblox in 2012 and it was pretty fun at 11 years old but the pay2win stuff was out of control even back then.
There were a few weird roleplay servers but back then it really just felt like "playing house" online, but the fact that anyone regardless of age could hop in at any time and send socials was fucking weird to me even as a kid.
It needs a serious rework of how the platform works if they want to continue marketing themselves as for children. The game has seen barely any safety improvements from what I've seen of current gameplay and mfs are wilin on the internet nowadays
Ngl roblox kinda sucks and their moderation is awful
Ngl roblox kinda ##### and their moderation is #####
Roblox chat filter
Good.
Lol when you agree with a ban that turkey made thats a strange day. Maybe a ban is a bit too much but roblox is shitty and they should be pressured to change... and this applies to most large companies
This is actually about the "condos", private ERP instances where children are exploited for robux.
I've always thought roblox was dumb, but its kind of just a playground. Kids need a playground where their imaginations are free to grow and thy're in control. Somewhere they can interact and learn how to socialize safely with other children. When i was a kid, that was a walk to the park with friends to kick a ball around, riding a bicycle somewhere, exploring, and working out some dumb activities to do... Honest question: how comfortable are you with the idea of just letting your kids go to the park by themselves for hours on end?
For better or worse, it seems like sandbox creativity games like roblox are filling that void for some kids. Not saying roblox is an answer to a problem, just that kids seem to be utilizing it as a playground where they get to be creative and in control. Not sure why I'm bringing this up. It's just a thought that occurred to me recently.
Kids deserve to have games like Roblox, but they don't deserve to be exploited financially by them by child labour and gambling mechanics.
As always, the answer to child welfare is to prevent them interacting directly with capitalism and markets. Children should always be given a communist upbringing with free food, shelter, clothes, healthcare, education, and recreation.
Nice.
I regret to inform you that this news is: BASED
W
FYI, Instagram was blocked in Turkey a few days before Roblox ban. Both are still blocked.
Based Turkey.
So this sounds like a parent problem.
lol I can see why they would do that
To Roblox: Being "child friendy" gives you controversies. You reap what you sowed.
This org needs a revival so that people can move away from roblox
Lol nice
Can someone tell me how the kids are being forced to make video games. I have read several of these articles and can’t understand the logic. My kids played Roblox and created games on the platform they were never forced or coerced to make anything. Maybe it’s our messed up capitalistic society that expects everybody to monetize anything that’s fun.
Not coerced, but tricked into thinking they would get money for it while roblox or some other adult creator takes 90% of it.
At least in my day when we made some small rpg maker 2000 thing for free there wasn't anyone above me getting rich while I got zilch.
I watched a video a while back about this, but the details are fuzzy. I think it was the one I linked below if you want to look more into it. In essence, there aren't a ton of cases where kids are actually being forced to work. However, there are strong incentives for kids to work on Roblox projects that the developers themselves push. The devs want a constant stream of content and money coming in, but they don't want to pay adult workers at adult wages, so they offer Robux to players who make games. It is difficult for people to convert Robux to actual cash, and the money they receive is often significantly less than they would if they put the effort into any other form of work, so many of these kids are essentially making content for the developers for free or significantly less than they should earn. If there was no payout for content creators and the kids were doing that development just because they had passion for the game, it might be a different situation, but there are quite a few kids that believe they can make serious money doing this and don't understand that the developers are exploiting them and paying very little. Adults can probably do more research and better understand the situation they are getting into, but kids often don't have the same critical thinking skills as adults and will accept the lie being pushed by the developers and community that they can get rich by contributing to the game they love.
Video: https://youtu.be/_gXlauRB1EQ
Follow-up: https://youtu.be/vTMF6xEiAaY
The details are too much to go into here in a simple comment. For a full investigation into Roblox check out this video by People Make Games, a games journalism site:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gXlauRB1EQ
Essentially, Roox makes billions off the free labour of children. The entire eco system is set up to funnel kids into a cycle of consuming others content and producing their own. It's also completely unregulated which has allowed some shady people, some of whom are, or directly work for, the owners of the platform to set up quasi developer studios where children are subjected to the same appealing treatment and exploitation of the regular games industry, while earning none of the revenue.
Well none of these sources tell me how the kids are forced into this. All these services are free, so I still don’t see the exploitation. Are you saying the kids are tricked into making games for Roblox, if so then maybe that’s on the parents. As a software engineer and having kids who played Roblox their entire lives, I still can’t make the leap of exploitive practices over just capitalism. Maybe show me another platform that kids can learn how the basics of game design while hosting the game at the same time.
Awful. A government should not be allowed to block websites.
What about websites providing CSAM, hosting livestreams of animals being tortured for payment, selling drugs, etc...
Blocking a website is the only way for a country to stop these kind of illegal activists, short of shutting down the physical servers.
That statement doesn't really make sense. Especially in this case, the website is a business and a store. A government definitely has the right to take legal action against a physical store operating within it's jurisdiction, so why would the same not hold true for an electronic one?
Will someone please explain to me how a video game exploits children.
Kids make maps. Stuff in the maps is sold for Roblox bucks. Roblox bucks cost money to buy. The kid who makes the map gets the Roblox bucks, and can sell them. The problem is you only get 30% back when you sell a Roblox buck.
So kids spend time making big maps and servers, buying ads, getting shoutouts on YouTube/whatever, and Roblox takes a 70% cut from all of it
You could start with this People Make Games video from a couple of years ago. https://youtu.be/_gXlauRB1EQ?si=Ttg4-Bust1K-X-22
You must not be just a troll... but a mountain troll
These guys explain it well, let them: