Russia blocks children's gaming platform Roblox for violating anti-LGBTQ+ "propaganda" lawhttps://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/12/russia-blocks-childrens-gaming-platform-roblox-for-violating-anti-lgbtq-propaganda-law/ 🔗John Russell (5 Dec 2025)
Russia's federal media regulator has blocked access to U.S. children's online gaming platform Roblox for allegedly violating the country's infamous law against LGBTQ+ "propaganda."
Reuters reports that Roskomnadzor, Russia's Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, announced the ban on December 3, claiming that Roblox is "rife with inappropriate content that can negatively impact the spiritual and moral development of children."
Under Russian law, so-called LGBTQ+ "propaganda" has been banned in the presence of minors since 2013. In late 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed legislation expanding the 2013 law to effectively outlaw any public expression of LGBTQ+ life in the country. And in 2023, Russia's Supreme Court declared the "international LGBT social movement" an "extremist organization."
As Them notes, Roskomnadzor's press service said that Roblox had, at the request of the agency, previously removed in-game material that "depicted LGBT characters and attributes of the LGBT community" in July, specifically citing the country's 2023 Supreme Court decision upholding the law.
But on Wednesday, Roskomnadzor's press service told reporters that it had restricted access to the platform "over registered facts of massive and repeated dissemination of materials with propaganda and justification of extremist and terrorist activities, calls for committing illegal violent actions and LGBT propaganda," according to Russian news agency Interfax.
