ALBAWABA - Iraq has followed other countries in banning popular gaming platform Roblox over child safety concerns.
The Iraqi government revealed that the ban was implemented because Roblox allows its users to communicate freely with each other despite the possibility of an age gap, which could stem issues such as the exploitation of children to blackmail and abuse.
Additionally, the Iraqi Ministry of Communications said that "the game poses several security, social, and behavioral risks."
Iraq bans Roblox over child safety
Concerns over Roblox and child safety first surfaced as early as 2017 when the game gained traction among a younger audience, mainly children under 13. Reports then revealed that those same children would get exposed to sexual content from user-generated maps, predetory behaviour from older users via chatrooms.
Its popularity among children only increased further in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic causing an even larger flood of children to flock to the platform.
As the numbers and concerning cases increased, angry parents began calling for proper moderation or the ban of the game. Roblox's sandbox model makes the platform difficult to moderate as it allows users the freedom to create and modify rooms, games and worlds, leading to the creation of content which could be inapporpriate for children.
The game was also previously banned by other countries including Turkey, Qatar, and Kuwait due to child safety issues.
In contrast, while Roblox was not banned in the UAE, the country forced the platform to disable certain in-game communication features such as chat and voice, and implement a moderation tool, specfically for the Arabic language.
