After Instagram, whose access has been blocked in Turkey for a week now, Ankara has also decided to ban the online gaming platform Roblox, which has more than 15 million users in the country and is mostly frequented by young people.
Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunç has explained last night on X (formerly Twitter) that the decision is linked to the presence of “content” that could be harmful to “minors”, concerns that “have been the subject of an investigation conducted by the General Prosecutor’s Office of Adana”, a city in southern Turkey.
Roblox is an online gaming platform that also allows the development of new titles. According to Apple Store and Google Play, over 41 million users in Turkey have downloaded this app since its launch in January 2015, for a total economic exchange of at least 37.5 million dollars.
The Other Fronts of Erdogan’s Digital War
The blocking of Roblox has provoked numerous reactions in Turkey, not only on the web, while since August 2 it still continues not to result Instagram platform becomes accessible amid unclear accusations of censorship of Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip and dissemination of alleged “illegal content.”
In response to accusations from Turkish authorities, the social network owned by Meta said it had removed, at Ankara’s request, nearly 2,500 pieces of content considered illegal during the first six months of 2024 alone. But evidently it was not enough.
Turkey’s offensive against social media may not stop there, however: the chairman of the parliamentary commission on digital platforms, Huseyin Yayman, has in fact announced a further crackdown, this time against Tiktok, which – according to the politician from President Erdogan’s AKP party – “the nation” is calling for to be closed.
“People who see me on the street shout at me: ‘You’ll go to heaven if you close Tiktok,’” he assured in a video published for the first time from the local news agency DHAin which Yayman recalled the requests received from citizens he met in the localities of Hatay, Adana, Mersin and even in the capital Ankara and Istanbul.
The mayor of Istanbul and one of the most authoritative voices of the opposition, Ekrem Imamoglu, however, judged the attitude of the Turkish authorities towards social platforms as “inconceivable”. “Those who make these decisions are ignorant minds regarding the new world, economy and technology,” he said. reacted Imamoglu on X.
#Türkiye #Erdogan #continues #digital #war #social #platforms #Access #Roblox #blocked
