We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality, said the first Lord Macauly in 1830. If he'd stayed around for another couple of centuries, he'd have had the immense pleasure of being roundly trumped. Today, we have the joy of Microsoft lecturing us about corporate responsibility. Because chatrooms are the haunts of perverts and spammers, the company says, it is going to close those free areas on MSN.
For Microsoft, this is an excellent move. Running chatrooms costs money, and if you charge for the pleasure then your users go elsewhere. By shutting these services down with a cry of "Think of the children!", the company saves dosh and looks respectable. It can also wag its finger at its most hated online enemy, AOL, for continuing with its chatrooms, and get acres of free publicity that doesn't revolve around the company being in court. Rarely can a company have publicly disowned part of its long-term business plan to such good effect.
It's not such a good move for the children that Microsoft is so ostentatiously protecting. It's most certainly true that online anonymous discussion areas are often thoroughly unpleasant places: if you ever find yourself fondly imagining that racism and anti-Semitism are endangered species, just wander into a UK chatroom and pretend you're from, say, Nigeria and planning to live in Britain. It's interesting from an anthropological point of view -- why can't white supremacists spell? -- but hardly a nurturing environment for the young. That's before the paedophiles and porn merchants start up, as well as the other online scam merchants that anyone who's ever chatted will know only too well.
But Microsoft's shocked, I tell you, shocked response to finding bad behaviour in its club is merely to throw everyone out onto the street. If the company wants to take the moral lead on this, then fine: it can create moderated, controlled chatrooms for children and ensure they're safe and enjoyable. It can monitor the traffic and work with authorities when crimes are committed: Operation Avalanche in the US generated seven thousand names of UK subscribers to child pornography by watching chatrooms, among other intelligence, and this is the sort of information Microsoft could easily be generating. It chooses not to. If it can't make money at it, it prefers to walk away.
Talkback
Good for Microsoft!
All unmoderated chat rooms/newsgroups should be unsupported by anyone I fund. If individuals want to set up bullshit/offensive/pointless chat rooms then let them go ahead - I just don't want to pay for it.
I think Microsoft shutting down the chat rooms is a great idea! I used to go on chatrooms often and It was fine at first untill I get called everyname under the sun and because of no moderators then people just keep doing it so I think great go for it Microsoft but if you launch any subscription chatt stuff in the UK then sorry but I aint paying for it cause im never using a chat room again!
Yet again, MS have proved they are anything but altruists. The only reasons for this decision are to save money and gain free positive publicity. MS chat rooms make up a very small fraction of the places available online for people to talk live. Removing them will simply make users find other providers of such services.
Wake up and smell the bacon folks. Microsoft don't give a toss about the safety of our children. All they are interested in is their bottom line and an increase in their market share. Everything else is irrelevant.
Microsoft may think that closing their chatrooms will help protect children from possibly coming into contact with undesirable people, but what about the junk mail children all over the country who have a hotmail account are receiving every day?
If you want to look at porn on the internet, you dont have to even look for it, if you have a hotmail account, it looks for you! I have had my account for about six years. I have never looked at anything even slightly 'dodgy' on the internet, and I rarely give out my email address. Yet I receive about 30 - 50 junk mail items per day, most of which are inviting me to view porn. There is no discrimination, it is all there - young, old, mixed, same sex, animals, people from the same family - it is all there ready to view.
Not only is this kind of mail likely to end up in the Inbox or Junk Mail folder of childrens hotmail accounts, but in some cases it must encourage adults who have not even considered such things before to take a look to see what it is all about?
Surely it cannot be that difficult for Microsoft to put filters in place to remove most of this kind of Junk Mail? Even if it is difficult, they should at least be making noises that they are trying to do something to stop it. Yes, chatrooms can be dangerous places, but this kind of Junk Mail surely encourages behaviour that could put children in more danger, but hey, at least they wont be meeting in MSN chatrooms anymore!
All I can say is well, said, and I must agree. There are far worse place to go then MSN rooms, especially as they have at least some rules and regs, whereas other, like teenchat, do not. Lets face it, abuse in chat rooms will happen though, MS providing the service or not.