The State Duma questioned the integrity of Roblox's statements about the removal of dangerous information

The State Duma (State Duma) expressed doubt about the good faith of the Roblox platform's statements about its readiness to remove dangerous content, their statements so far look like an attempt to gain time, they are not supported by specific measures to strengthen moderation and ensure user safety. Anton Nemkin, a member of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications, federal coordinator of the Digital Russia party project, told Izvestia on December 17.

The deputy noted: The fact that the Roblox management started talking about readiness for interaction only after the platform was limited speaks for itself. Before the actual sanctions, there were years of ignoring, after which there was a sudden "understanding" and promises to improve. He stressed that this is a standard tactic of large foreign digital services that believe they can operate in any market without respecting its laws.

"The platform's recognition of its own failures in content moderation and chat security is an important, but only the first step. There are not enough statements here. Society is waiting for concrete actions: effective moderation, real suppression of criminal communications, protection of children not on paper, but in a real digital environment. And only based on the results of these actions will it be possible to talk about some kind of trust," Nemkin said.

He noted that if Roblox is really ready to change its approach and work in the Russian legal field, they will cooperate with it, but if this is another attempt to gain time and limit themselves to beautiful words, the answer will be harsh and unambiguous.

"The safety of children is more important than the interests of any international platform. It is important to understand that Roskomnadzor's requirements are not censorship or an attempt to "ban everything," as the platforms themselves like to present the situation. These are basic measures to protect minors from violence, suicide propaganda, drugs, extremism and other threats that children face online on a daily basis," the deputy explained.

Similar standards exist in most developed countries. Russia is not inventing anything extraordinary here — it protects children, he concluded.

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Earlier that day, the Roblox platform, after restricting its operation in the Russian Federation, contacted Roskomnadzor with a willingness to cooperate in order to take the necessary measures to remove destructive and dangerous information, prevent criminal acts and user communications.

On December 3, Roskomnadzor restricted access to Roblox due to the fact that materials with propaganda and justification of extremist and terrorist activities, calls for violence, as well as propaganda of LGBT topics were massively and repeatedly distributed in the game's chat rooms (the LGBT movement is recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation).

On December 4, Sergei Boyarsky, head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, called Roskomnadzor's decision to block Roblox absolutely correct and timely. According to him, the game itself did not pose a threat, but fraud cases became more frequent in its chats, when intruders asked children to take pictures of their parents' bank cards and stole funds.

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