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Comment by booi | Hacker News Reader

I don’t get it. Roblox is an American company. Wouldn’t the pretty broad sanctions prevent them from operating there already?

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That depends on what you mean by "operating". This very website, Hacker News, is not blocked in Russia - does that mean Y Combinator is "operating" there?

Fun fact, Hacker News is blocked in China

I’m curious how you know this? Did you try to get to this site from mainland and it was blocked?

Seems to work fine from a Chinese VPN IP

I am in China and it does not load. What vpn are you using? Its prolly hosted in HK or TW.

If they get money from users in that particular country then yes.

Not necessarily. Roblox does not directly receive money from users - nobody sends them a paper check or bank wire from Russia. Technically they get money from payment providers, who are supposedly compliant with all sanctions. I'm pretty sure that any provider that can support Roblox scale is big enough to worry about risks of being non-compliant.

Not all sanctions only require you to validate that the bank isn’t from that country. Usually disbursing money (which Roblox does as a two-sided marketplace) requires actual KYC.

This is an interesting question I wish I knew. Because I play war thunder and it is free to play but once a year I pay about $50 for the annual premium membership because I enjoy the game and worth it to me. But ultimately it is supposedly a Russian game. I know they have offices in other parts of the world but I have really wondered if the money is going back to Russia or if all the developed have just left and get it elsewhere in a different county.

Wikipedia says it's moved to Hungary in 2015.

Some stuff on Roblox is free, perhaps they were only enjoined from accepting payments?

There's a big difference -- when EU/US bans Russians from using Roblox and other things and seeing other culture, (or someone bans Russians or Iranians by IP), it's rightful and thoughtful decision to protect democracy. When Russia does the same, it's dictatorial censorship.

Not all governments are equal - though this cuts both ways.

Which bans are you referring to?

They’re referring to sanctions - persons/businesses residing in Russia, certain specific individuals and those working for specific Russian entities are locked out of much of the Western economy. I think it’s reasonable personally, but I can understand how a Russian 1000km from the Ukrainian frontline who used to sell jewelry on Etsy would be pissed.

The most affected were not those inside, but the emigrants. MasterCard and Visa blocked Russian banks, and the emigrees couldn't pay with their savings anymore. Some people got shadow banned by banks, their accounts closed, or money transfers rejected.

These people were on the Europe's side politically, yet they were targeted by just the passport.

None of the Russian expats I’ve met had this problem: after 2014 they all saw the writing on the wall and moved their money to western banks. I have sympathy for those that didn’t - normal people shouldn’t have to make this kind of calculus - but there’s no alternative to this while having useful sanctions. It’s not the causeless brutality of breaking someone’s window because of their accent.

Well, every expat I know, including me, had this problem and spent days working around. And the sanctions were very poorly designed, because the drones landing in Ukraine still have fresh American and German parts.

I'm not saying they should be lifted, but they punished the most exactly the pro-European Russians, inside our outside.

The way you phrase it, the banks were targeted, not the people or passports. Seems like anyone with money in a Russian bank would be in the same boat.

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