yahoo baning chat rooms

[unvi$ible]

hi
interesting article and action from yahoo
about time they do something but personally thinlk drop in the ocean.
http://australianit.news.com.au/arti....html?from=rss
i am james bond
you think i am not
oh sry i am merlin monroe

[Katja]

Hmmm. That's new. They already closed any user-defined rooms in the past simply because some users were creating rooms like "preteens sucking D*cks" and other nasty titles. And there were some sections already blocked for underage visitors. But if now all the chatrooms will be closed on Yahoo, I think there won't be any pre-18 left on Yahoo. (Or actually, it will seem that way since they will all just create an 18+ account and pretend to be older.)

Yahoo never checks the age of it's members anyway. Even worse, when a person ages, their account remains their old status. You can be 20 years old but if you created your account 5 years ago and filled in your real age back then, then Yahoo will continue to consider you to be a minor... Pretty stupid anyways.

Apparantly they are putting Yahoo under a lot of fire these days. You can notice this because all those pervs who used to be in the Yahoo chatrooms are now moving to other places where they can chat with underage people...

[.:front2back:.]

About time they did something about that Yahoo thingy.
Maybe now it might just be worth it to use the messenger program and not have to put up with teenie boppers and there immature ideas.

Bugger like i really give a fruit tingle anyhow, Irc is were the real fun is at anyhow.....

[The Texan]

Even if they do make the chat rooms 18+ that still wont stop all of it. pervs will still find a way to get in and do what they do but, i guess its a step in the right direction huh?

[forgetvengance]

I agree.This is a very good thing for them to do.It won't stop all of the "Preditors" from doing what they do, but at least it'll slow them down. Plus most of the teens just use them to chat to friends they already have anyhow because their parents grounded them from the phone or they are usin all their cell min up.

[Broomiebar]

they will all just create an 18+ account and pretend to be older.)

Exactly what happens now anyway.


If I was a parent, I would install some Parental control Software or Spyware, and oh.. I wouldn't let my kids spend the night over at Neverland.


Cheers,
B.B

[dmorgan]

I'd like to see something like the honey monkey project except with real people. Hell, there should already be a huge FBI task force assigned to this. Put 'em all in front of a keyboard, pose as little kids, wait for the emails, should be enough for a warrant (and if not enough probable cause exists, wait a little more). Bust them all. There needs to be a huge rounding sweep of these people. Put a little fear of "Sally, your 300lb 6'8" gorilla of a roomie" into them. I know it is impossible to put them all into jail, but something huge needs to be done.

It's not entrapment if the FBI does not actively try to get the person to break the law, and posing as a child doesn't fall under that.

[Katja]

The problem with that, dmorgan, is that the FBI has no authority outside the USA and many countries do frown upon this. In the Netherlands this would even be illegal and whatever evidence the FBI provides would be invalid here. While the USA does have a large collection of online perverts, many of them are from many other countries too. In the Yahoo chatrooms, they actually tend to be either Arabs or Indians since they know they are pretty safe in their own country. Then again, there are plenty of Russian and European perverts in these chatrooms too and on occasion you might meet some African pervert.

Besides, there are already many people in those chatrooms who just pretend to be teenage kids. Probably turns them on or whatever. Or maybe they're just viligantes who are trying to expose those perverts by themselves. As a result, someone who gets accused could always claim that he thought he was chatting with some pretender. Claiming that he knew he was talking to another adult and thus he never committed any crime.

What I think is needed is a good age validation system for the whole Internet. Some way that will prove you're 18+ or whatever other age of consent that's valid in the country where you live.