Children and young people are attending protests in Roblox as a way of showing support for Palestine in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Kotaku spotted a post on X (fka Twitter) describing a pro-Palestinian protest on Roblox: “y’all my cousin is 15 and couldn’t join a protest so she just went to one on [Roblox] bro i’m crying”.
They added that their cousin wasn’t able to drive herself to a protest in real life due to her age and that there was no one else available to take her there, so she settled for a virtual show of support instead.
The kids are ok https://t.co/VBifgRJL7W pic.twitter.com/HzYQGv0uSP
— 💀 Venus Defiant ❤️🔥 (@TheVenusDarling) October 24, 2023
Footage of the in-game demonstration on TikTok was then shared in the replies along with a link to the custom-created map. At the time of writing, the map – “made for Palestine solidarity” – has been visited over 57,000 times by other Roblox players and there are almost 1,000 players active in it now.
The protest involved players walking together along a red brick road lined with Palestinian flags. Players were waving flags of their own as they moved towards the end of the demonstration, which was an open square with a sign saying “Solitary Untukmu” (“Solidarity for you” in Malay).
Kotaku noted that the Singaporean flag also appeared in the map, on a flagpole and in the hands of some of the protesting players.
As Roblox allows its users to express their creativity with a range of approachable development tools and has accumulated popularity amongst a younger fanbase, it is assumed that the map was made by a child or a group of children.
literally saw this on my fyp 😭 https://t.co/xHOA2NRsSj pic.twitter.com/OzDB0g8oMh
— naddy 🍊🇵🇸 (@heeIiftIab) October 24, 2023
Roblox Corporation issued its own statement after Kotaku asked for a comment.
“We are deeply saddened by the horrific tragedy unfolding in Israel and Gaza, and our hearts go out to those who are impacted in the area or who have loved ones, family and friends in the region,” it said.
“While our Community Standards allow for expressions of solidarity, we do not allow for content that endorses or condones violence, promotes terrorism or hatred against individuals or groups, or calls for supporting a specific political party.
“We have an expert team of thousands of moderators along with automated detection tools in place to monitor our platform and will take swift action against any content or individuals found to be in violation of our standards.”
Roblox Corporation also added that those who believe they have identified content or behaviour that violates the game’s Community Standards to address it with the “Report Abuse” feature.
In other gaming news, former Bethesda Softworks design director Bruce Nesmith said that Fallout 76‘s shambolic launch was a sign of the studio’s “hubris”.