{"id":40139,"date":"2025-12-05T05:51:36","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T05:51:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/russia-is-blocking-snapchat-and-roblox-saying-theyre-used-for-terrorist-activities\/"},"modified":"2025-12-05T05:51:36","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T05:51:36","slug":"russia-is-blocking-snapchat-and-roblox-saying-theyre-used-for-terrorist-activities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/usa\/russia-is-blocking-snapchat-and-roblox-saying-theyre-used-for-terrorist-activities\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia is blocking Snapchat and Roblox, saying they&#8217;re used for &#8216;terrorist activities&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.insider.com\/6932593471107c9f34576413?format=jpeg\" alt=\"A child is seen playing a game on the Roblox platform.\"\/><figcaption>Roblox, the popular gaming platform, is now blocked in Russia. Moscow said it&#039;s been used to coordinate &quot;terrorist&quot; activities.<\/p>\n<p>Hannah Peters\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Roblox and Snapchat are now blocked in Russia over what it said were concerns about extremism.<\/li>\n<li>They&#039;re now added to an extensive list of blocked or restricted platforms in Russia for such reasons.<\/li>\n<li>Apple&#039;s FaceTime also faces restrictions for what Russia said was &quot;terrorist&quot; activity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Russia&#039;s internet and media regulator said this week that it has blocked Snapchat and Roblox, saying both platforms were used for &quot;extremist and terrorist&quot; activity.<\/p>\n<p>Roskomnadzor announced its decision to block Snapchat on Thursday, but said it had already made the social media app unavailable in Russia since October 10.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;According to law enforcement agencies, Snapchat is being used to organize and conduct terrorist activities in the country, recruit perpetrators, and commit fraud and other crimes against our citizens,&quot; it said in a statement, per state media.<\/p>\n<p>The federal agency made a similar announcement on Wednesday regarding Roblox, accusing the gaming platform of enabling the distribution of propaganda advocating for extremist or terrorist activities.<\/p>\n<p>It also said that users were using Roblox to spread &quot;LGBT information,&quot; which Russia legally considers extremist.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Roskomnadzor said on Thursday that it is also imposing &quot;restrictive measures&quot; on Apple&#039;s FaceTime video calling service.<\/p>\n<p>State media outlet TASS wrote that the agency said that &quot;FaceTime is being used to coordinate terrorist activities in the country, recruit terrorists, and commit fraud and other crimes against citizens.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>A Roblox spokesperson told Business Insider that the company has a &quot;deep commitment to safety&quot; and enacts proactive measures to catch and prevent harmful content on the platform.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;We respect the local regulations in the countries where we operate and believe Roblox provides a positive space for learning, creation, and meaningful connection for everyone,&quot; they said.<\/p>\n<p>The gaming firm&#039;s CEO, Dave Baszucki, said in September 2022 that Russia contributed roughly 2 million active daily Roblox users at the time, compared to 11 million in the US.<\/p>\n<p>Apple and Snap Inc. did not respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.<\/p>\n<p>Since it began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has stepped up internet regulation by placing varying degrees of restrictive measures on international social media and messaging platforms, including bans on Signal and Meta&#039;s WhatsApp and Instagram.<\/p>\n<p>Telegram, a messaging app founded by Russian-born Pavel Durov, has been partially restricted in Russia, with voice and video calls limited in the country. The Kremlin is also suspected of throttling YouTube traffic in the country.<\/p>\n<p>The Kremlin has cited extremism and terrorism concerns for internet restrictions since before 2022, but now also uses these terms to describe Ukrainian or anti-Kremlin partisan attacks on its territory.<\/p>\n<p>It&#039;s unclear, however, whether the latest restrictions are related to such attacks at all. Ukraine&#039;s defense ministry did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, Russia has been dealing with domestic attacks and threats that don&#039;t have strong links to Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>In March 2024, at least 149 people were killed, and another 609 were injured during a coordinated attack at a concert venue in Moscow. An Afghanistan-based branch of ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.<\/p>\n<p>Read the original article on Business Insider<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Roblox, the popular gaming platform, is now blocked in Russia. Moscow said it&#039;s been used to coordinate &quot;terrorist&quot; activities. Hannah Peters\/Getty Images Roblox and Snapchat are now blocked in Russia over what it said were concerns about extremism. They&#039;re now added to an extensive list of blocked or restricted platforms in Russia for such reasons. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40140,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-40139","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/agooka.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}