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Türkiye Blocks Roblox Access over Abuse Concerns

Online gaming service Roblox. Lionel Bonaventure | AFP | Getty Images
Online gaming service Roblox. Lionel Bonaventure | AFP | Getty Images
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Türkiye Blocks Roblox Access over Abuse Concerns

Online gaming service Roblox. Lionel Bonaventure | AFP | Getty Images
Online gaming service Roblox. Lionel Bonaventure | AFP | Getty Images

Türkiye has blocked access to the popular video game platform Roblox over concerns about content that could lead to child abuse, the country's justice minister said.

"Our country is obliged to take the necessary measures to ensure the protection of our children," Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc said on social media platform X. "Using technology in a negative way is never acceptable."

He said a Turkish court had imposed the access block under an investigation by prosecutors in the southern province of Adana due to concerns about content that could lead to the abuse of children.

A spokesperson for Roblox, which hosts user-created games, said ensuring the safety of users, particularly the youngest, is at the core of the company's operations.

"We respect the laws and regulations in countries where we operate and share local lawmakers' commitment to children. We look forward to working together to ensure Roblox is back online in Türkiye as soon as possible," the spokesperson said in an email to Reuters.

The Roblox ban came after Türkiye blocked access to social media platform Instagram last week, a move it said was due to Instagram not abiding by certain laws and public sensitivities.

Turkish officials held talks with Instagram this week but the issue has not yet been resolved.

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Fossils Suggest Even Smaller ‘Hobbits’ Roamed an Indonesian Island 700,000 Years Ago

A fragment (left) of the upper arm bone called the humerus - belonging to a diminutive extinct human species called Homo floresiensis, that dates to about 700,000 years ago and was discovered at the Mata Menge site on the Indonesian island of Flores - is shown at the same scale as the humerus of a later Homo floresiensis fossil dating to 60,000 years ago from the Liang Bua cave site in Flores, in this handout image released on August 6, 2024. (Yousuke Kaifu/Handout via Reuters)
A fragment (left) of the upper arm bone called the humerus - belonging to a diminutive extinct human species called Homo floresiensis, that dates to about 700,000 years ago and was discovered at the Mata Menge site on the Indonesian island of Flores - is shown at the same scale as the humerus of a later Homo floresiensis fossil dating to 60,000 years ago from the Liang Bua cave site in Flores, in this handout image released on August 6, 2024. (Yousuke Kaifu/Handout via Reuters)
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Fossils Suggest Even Smaller ‘Hobbits’ Roamed an Indonesian Island 700,000 Years Ago

A fragment (left) of the upper arm bone called the humerus - belonging to a diminutive extinct human species called Homo floresiensis, that dates to about 700,000 years ago and was discovered at the Mata Menge site on the Indonesian island of Flores - is shown at the same scale as the humerus of a later Homo floresiensis fossil dating to 60,000 years ago from the Liang Bua cave site in Flores, in this handout image released on August 6, 2024. (Yousuke Kaifu/Handout via Reuters)
A fragment (left) of the upper arm bone called the humerus - belonging to a diminutive extinct human species called Homo floresiensis, that dates to about 700,000 years ago and was discovered at the Mata Menge site on the Indonesian island of Flores - is shown at the same scale as the humerus of a later Homo floresiensis fossil dating to 60,000 years ago from the Liang Bua cave site in Flores, in this handout image released on August 6, 2024. (Yousuke Kaifu/Handout via Reuters)

Twenty years ago on an Indonesian island, scientists discovered fossils of an early human species that stood at about 3 1/2 feet (1.07 meters) tall — earning them the nickname “hobbits.”

Now a new study suggests ancestors of the hobbits were even slightly shorter.

“We did not expect that we would find smaller individuals from such an old site,” study co-author Yousuke Kaifu of the University of Tokyo said in an email.

The original hobbit fossils — named by the discoverers after characters in “The Lord of the Rings” — date back to between 60,000 and 100,000 years ago. The new fossils were excavated at a site called Mata Menge, about 45 miles from the cave where the first hobbit remains were uncovered.

In 2016, researchers suspected the earlier relatives could be shorter than the hobbits after studying a jawbone and teeth collected from the new site. Further analysis of a tiny arm bone fragment and teeth suggests the ancestors were a mere 2.4 inches (6 centimeters) shorter and existed 700,000 years ago.

“They’ve convincingly shown that these were very small individuals,” said Dean Falk, an evolutionary anthropologist at Florida State University who was not involved with the research.

The findings were published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

Researchers have debated how the hobbits – named Homo floresiensis after the remote Indonesian island of Flores – evolved to be so small and where they fall in the human evolutionary story. They're thought to be among the last early human species to go extinct.

Scientists don't yet know whether the hobbits shrank from an earlier, taller human species called Homo erectus that lived in the area, or from an even more primitive human predecessor. More research – and fossils – are needed to pin down the hobbits’ place in human evolution, said Matt Tocheri, an anthropologist at Canada's Lakehead University.

“This question remains unanswered and will continue to be a focus of research for some time to come,” Tocheri, who was not involved with the research, said in an email.