At the beginning of the month, Roblox was banned by Russia's communications watchdog Roskomnadzor. The multiplayer platform wasn't banned because of the plethora of well-publicised child safety issues, but rather because of the "repeated distribution of materials promoting and justifying extremist and terrorist activity, calls for violent crimes, and propaganda of LGBT themes."
That's quite the laundry list of accusations levelled against Roblox — how often do you get to promote LGBT themes while justifying terrorist activity; that's an impressively rare combo. Regardless of Roskomnadzor's reasons, the country's youth isn't pleased with the organisation's decision.
According to reporting from The Moscow Times, Vladimir Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov admitted the Kremlin has received "many" letters from children regarding the ban.
Peskov's response was prompted by comments from pro-Kremlin public figure Yekaterina Mizulina, who claims to have received 63,000 letters from children about the banning of Roblox. Mizulina claims that a substantial portion of these children also express a desire to leave Russia to circumvent the ban.
"They don't write about leaving [Russia], but they do write about the game," Peskov claims. It's no surprise that the banning of Roblox has caused furore in Russia, as it was one of...
