The Government of Iraq announced a ban on United States users from creating the content game platform, Roblox, to become another country to be banned after China, Turkey, Oman and Qatar. According to Reuters, the Iraqi authorities took this initiative out of fear that the platform’s direct communications function might expose children to exploitation or cyber-extortion, and concluded that the platform was “incompatible with its social values and traditions”.
Roblox responded to Reuters that security was its top priority and hoped to resume services in cooperation with the Government. “We firmly question the recent allegations made by the Iraqi authorities, based on outdated perceptions of our platform”, one speaker said. Earlier this year, Reuters reported that Roblox had suspended some of its communications functions in Arab countries, such as Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Syria, Palestine, Yemen and Iraq, and strengthened content audits. While Iraq has joined the Middle East in strengthening virtual world regulation, the UAE is actively exploring and investing in video games.
On Monday this week, the Attorney General of Florida, James Usmail, issued a subpoena to Roblox requesting information on age verification requirements, chat room audits and child marketing strategies. This is just the latest case in a number of similar proceedings against Roblox. The state of Louisiana has previously filed a complaint regarding the platform’s failure to protect minors from abuse. Earlier this month, Roblox announced that parents were being recruited to participate in product and policy development as a “critical part of a vision for the most secure network environment”. The company plans to recruit 40 parent representatives from the United States, Canada, Mexico and all European countries, and will expand to other regions in the future. This is seen as the latest initiative to promote a civilized web environment. At the same time, Roblox indicated that it planned to upgrade the age certification system by means of facial age estimation techniques, age verification of identity cards and parental consent, in order to change the status quo, which relies only on self-declaration by users.
According to Reuters, the cumulative number of Roblox downloads that have been online since 2006 has exceeded 1 billion, with an average of 100 million active users per day and an average of 380 million independent users per month.
