Over the last week or so, Yahoo has been shutting down personal chat rooms. This came after a Houston television station aired a news report about chat rooms being used by adults trying to get minors to have sex with them.
Some people think that Yahoo is overreacting and should only target such chat rooms rather than shutting all personal chat rooms down. Yahoo has said though, that the decision is temporary until it can control the chat rooms better.
“This is a real overreaction on the part of Yahoo,” said Annalee Newitz, policy analyst for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. “To just unilaterally shut down chat rooms is really chilling to free speech.”
For now, users will only be able to participate in chat rooms run by Yahoo itself. They will not be able to set up their own, at least for the time being.
”We began implementing the changes to Yahoo Chat user rooms in the past week,” Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako said. ”We are working on improvements to enhance the user experience in compliance with our terms of service.”
Some chat rooms that got shut down had names like “Girls 13 and Under for Older Guys” and “Younger Girls for Older Guys”, the television report said. Hiawatha Bray with the Boston Globe writes:
This isn’t the first time an Internet service has restricted chat room usage because of concerns about child exploitation. In 2003, Microsoft eliminated its MSN chat room services outside the United States and required American users to be paying customers of the company — both efforts to weed out pedophiles.
The America Online Internet service gives its members considerable leeway, including the ability to set up private rooms for adults-only conversations. But spokesman Nicholas Graham said AOL has strict rules to protect children.
The TV report about Yahoo also led to advertisers pulling their ads that were appearing in the rooms. These advertisers included Pepsi, State Farm Insurance, and Georgia-Pacific.
”We were thoroughly appalled when we were told that our ads were appearing on those sites,” said Phil Supple, a spokesman for State Farm. ”We took immediate action to see that they were withdrawn.”
Chris is a staff writer for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest ebusiness news.
