Indonesia’s government is reportedly considering a ban on Roblox, the widely used online game-creation platform, after the education minister warned that it could expose children to violence and other harmful behaviours.
Advertisement
“There is a lot of violence in the game. Sometimes children don’t understand that what they see isn’t real,” Indonesian education minister Abdul Mu’ti said on August 4, adding that the platform could drive an increase in youth violence if young students mimic behaviours witnessed in the games.
Roblox encourages creativity by allowing users to design and play their own games. However, the platform’s voice chat function has raised concerns, with some warning that it can lead to violent or inappropriate interactions.
While Roblox does not enforce a specific age limit for registration, users under 13 have their chat access restricted and are subject to automatic content filtering.
Dr Gatra Priyandita, a senior analyst in cybertechnology and security at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said the threat to ban Roblox fitted into a broader pattern of digital regulation in Indonesia.
Advertisement
He said under President Prabowo Subianto there had been heightened attention to children’s use of digital platforms. The education minister’s concerns about “violent” or “immoral” content aligned with conservative social values and “give moral justification to censorship and tighter digital regulation”, Priyandita added.