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Gaming experts say that a move by Turkish officials to ban the popular game聽Minecraft聽for being 鈥渢oo violent鈥� may actually be a 鈥済ame shy鈥� reaction to a gaming culture that has in recent years worked its way into the rallying cries of young protestors.

This week, Turkish websites聽H眉rriyet Daily News聽and聽LeaderGamer聽report that the country's Family and Social Policies Ministry wants to ban Minecraft for being "too violent."

"Although the game can be seen as encouraging creativity in children by letting them build houses, farmlands and bridges, mobs [hostile creatures] must be killed in order to protect these structures. In short, the game is based on violence," the report stated (via H眉rriyet Daily News).

The report added its concerns that the game, which last year was purchased by Microsoft for $2.5 billion, may cause "social isolation," and that its online multiplayer component might lead to Internet bullying.

During the 2013 Gezi Park protests, in which聽demonstrators in Istanbul聽clashed with police over President Tayyip Erdogan鈥檚 aggressive development policies in the historic park, some youths used the slogan, "Gta'da polis d枚ven nesile sata艧t谋n" which loosely translates into "You are messing with kids who beat police playing Grand Theft Auto!"

Members of Massachusetts Institute of Technology responded in force to debunk the claims made against Minecraft.

Rik Eberhardt, Gaming Studios manager at the MIT Game Lab in Cambridge, Mass., says in an interview that he has some insight into why a government might feel compelled to ban games played over the Internet, instead of those stored locally on a PC or gaming console. [Editor's note: An earlier version of this story misspelled Mr.聽Eberhardt's first name.]

鈥淏anning Minecraft is similar politically to banning Twitter because it鈥檚 a game played on a server. On a server those communicating can鈥檛 be easily observed and monitored,鈥� says Mr. Eberhardt. 鈥淚 wonder if they [the Turkish ministry] see that Minecraft鈥檚 popular, have a negative memory of video games influencing youth and worry this game is connected in the same way.鈥�

Eberhardt adds, 鈥淭hese are some pretty typical concerns expressed by anyone who fears what they don鈥檛 understand about video gaming. We had our own brush with that I the 鈥�90s with [Senator聽Joe]聽Lieberman against Sonic.鈥� The efforts of Senator Lieberman, prompted by a Sega vampire game called Night Trap,聽brought about the聽ESRB聽rating systems.

Scot Osterweil, creative director of the Education Arcade and a research director in the MIT Comparative Media Studies/Writing Program says, 鈥淭he little bit of violence in Minecraft is to create obstacles to overcome through creative building. And, by the way, violence in Minecraft is basically like crashing two LEGO blocks together.鈥�

But because Minecraft is not a console game, it is not subject to the rating system governing sales.

Eric Klopfer, Director of the Scheller Teacher Education Program at MIT adds in an email, 鈥淔irst, there are so many different ways to engage in Minecraft, all of which are creative and some of which are completely non-violent. Kids who play in creative mode can build and treat the world as a landscape upon which to build with digital blocks.聽 Even in other modes of the game the creative and building process are much more important than killing skeletons (all of the 鈥渕obs鈥� that pose a threat are non-human).

鈥淭he game can be played with an exclusive focus on building and protecting vs. killing.聽 You can kill animals for food and hide - much like farming.聽 But it is also possible to be a vegetarian,鈥� Klopfer writes. 鈥淪econd, there is no evidence (and in fact much evidence to the contrary) that in game violence would translate to real world violence. 聽While in game activities seem to have an effect on the order of seconds, people are able to separate the in-game activities from real world activities, and know right from wrong.鈥� 聽

Additionally, by calling for a ban on the game, the Turkish ministry may have stepped on some toes at the United Nations. Minecraft has been used by the聽United Nations聽Human Settlements Program and UN-Habitat as an urban planning tool since early 2014, according to the game's makers.

The聽Block by Block聽initiative enables people in neighborhoods to envision reconstruction through the game鈥檚 building functions.

According to a source at the Turkish Consulate in New York, the Turkish ministry's report has been sent to the legal affairs department, along with instructions for the legal process for the ban to begin. Ultimately, whether the game is banned will be decided in the Turkish courts.