Roblox is set to be banned in Egypt — what are the consequences?

🎮 A week after President Abdel Fattah El Sisi urged lawmakers to restrict social media usage for younger age groups, a draft law pertaining to children's internet access has been submitted to the relevant authorities.

The proposed legislation would mandate that service providers employ measures to limit children’s exposure to “harmful practices,” as well as impose age-verification measures. The move would not involve a comprehensive ban on social media, but rather limit access and subject it to parental scrutiny.

A separate parliamentary proposal called for a blanket block on electronic games, according to a letter reviewed by EnterpriseAM. The proposal was rejected by Egypt’s National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) on the grounds it would be impractical and unsustainable, and would potentially make way for illegal alternatives or circumventive loopholes, as EnterpriseAM had previously reported. “Coding is so easy right now; you can use AI to build an app in 10 minutes,” counseling psychotherapist Khaled Salaheldin told us. “This opens the door to a lot of unregulated apps popping up. [Either way], they're going to access it. You might as well at least have something that's regulated, monitored, and has a safeguarding aspect to it.”

Roblox still got the cut

The massively popular online social gaming platform and game creation system Roblox is set to be banned, Deputy Head of the Supreme Council for Media Regulation (SCMR) Essam El Amir said in a senate session yesterday. The news quickly caught fire, spreading across all media outlets and late night talk shows, with El Hekaya’s Amr Adib simply stating that “it’s a cursed game.”

NTRA claims it has not yet received any official decision regarding the ban, according to spokesperson Mohamed Ibrahim, who further added that the ban would be rolled out once the decision is received.

What’s the case for banning Roblox?

The gaming platform’s native in-game chat feature, which makes up a significant portion of its gameplay, Roblox raises concerns about adult-child communication… in other words: grooming and predatory behavior. The platform — which boasts Egypt as one of its top three markets in the MENA region — is also notorious for exposing youth to inappropriate and violent content, with some extremist ideologies such as Nazi propaganda and Islamophobia ubiquitously displayed throughout, the Guardian writes. The platform skirted around Australia’s u-16 ban on account of being a gaming platform, not technically considered social media.

Will bans work?

“A ban would work, sure, but it’s such a short-term way to go about things,” Egyptian parenting platform Tribe founder Roba El Gindy tells EnterpriseAM. “[In doing so] we’re not necessarily giving the kids the tools they need to face real life,” she adds. It is more essential to promote safety education like teaching kids what to do in certain situations, what is acceptable behavior, and how to recognize danger. “There will always be something else that could cause the same problem,” she explains.

Whether or not banning is the correct path to take, El Gindy believes the ongoing discussions surrounding children’s online safety are forward-thinking. “It’s great that we’re starting to realize the mental health risks [...] and trying to ensure they are exposed to the right things at the right time,” she says.

Following the removal of Roblox, children will be going through withdrawal symptoms and parents will need to know how to handle the fallout. “[These kids] were so dependent on this game; their social life might have been centered on it,” she says, adding that it becomes a parent’s job to navigate that in a healthy, supportive manner. “It’s an actual loss for them. This event will either be a window for better communication, or we parents will end up minimizing their feelings. If we belittle them, they will just look for an alternative — we won't know about it.”

Are there more gaming sites on the chopping block?

Mysteriously, in addition to announcing the Roblox ban, El Amir said that two additional websites used by some 30 mn users in Egypt will also be banned, due to the fact that these sites “promote the idea of cohabitation exchanges between young men and women for a period of three months at no charge.”