Roblox Players Join “Free Palestine” Protests In-Game
The revolution will not be televised; it will be live-streamed on TikTok, Twitch, and YouTube.
Gamer kids in Malaysia, unable to protest the Israeli occupation of Palestine in person have created a user-created experience protest in Roblox. This user-created experience, “(PALESTINE) Dataran tanjung mas" allows young players unable to take to the streets to protest to participate in the “Free Palestine” protests in-game.
The Malaysian gamer, cikguzyd created the user experience on October 14 and has since had over 30k visits. Cikguzyd posted the video of the pro-Palestinian protest on his TikTok page to his more than 200,000 followers. In the video, you can see the player-led march for Palestinian freedom, carrying the flag of Palestine as cikguzyd leads the players in protest.
On October 23, Twitter user @funnecfox posted, “y’all my cousin is 15 and couldn’t join a protest so she just went to one on roblox bro i’m crying”. Other Twitter users replied with videos and images of themselves participating in the Roblox protest to free Palestine.
Social media has become increasingly useful for people unable to attend protests in person. In-game protests are the next logical step for numerous reasons including safety, age, health, lack of transportation, and so forth. There have been other in-game protests over the years in online games, including protests for better working conditions at Activision Blizzard in World of Warcraft, “Black Lives Matter” protests in The Sims, and “Free Hong Kong” protests in Animal Crossing.
With technologies allowing gaming platforms easier video and image capturing and sharing to social media platforms, the next frontier of protest could be in video games. Video games usually serve as a means for people to relax, gather with friends virtually, or escape their worries. However, when reality becomes too dangerous to express support for the rights and freedoms of people, the safest place can be the digital streets of online games.
