Slashdot Mirror
MSN Cuts Unmonitored Chatrooms Around the Globe
letxa2000 writes "According to MSNBC, Microsoft will be shutting down its unmonitored chat services in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and much of Latin America on October 14th--the day before MSN Messenger will lock out many 3rd party clients. Interestingly, the European manager of MSN is quoted as saying 'This is a decision based upon consumer experiences, child protection and our strategic investment to build up MSN Messenger.' It's starting to become clear that Microsoft is starting up the IM wars again and that the 3rd-party lockout indeed isn't so much about security as it is about marketshare."
Note that this only affects public chatrooms and not the MSN Messenger service - I say this now not because it's not obvious to those who read the article, but that because this is slashdot and people won't :)
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"In the United States, Canada and Japan, Microsoft will introduce an unsupervised chat service solely for subscribers,"
"Users in the affected regions will still be able to chat online but must do so through Microsoft Messenger,"
Of course it's about protecting children. Honest. The British press I've seen is latching onto the protecting the children angle to the exclusion of everything else. Bring back Chris Morris.
It seems these days people are afraid of everything, and Microsoft have used that fear to seems like they are doing us a favour by taking away a service!
This would be a good opportunity to turn people on to cross-platform IM clients like GAIM. I doubt anyone in the tech communities is naive enough to take the children argument as more than a red herring to keep IM from joinging the OS/Broswer/Mediaformat/Office format anti-trust action. It does, however, provide a very good cover for pushing people into MS-Passport, despite its reputation, and for locking out non-Microsoft IM clients.
Alternately, this can be seen as just another product or service being dropped or postponed as the company sheds weight to try to stay afloat.
Lastly, regarding the link. This is being covered by everyone and his dog, even Reuters, so no need to plug poor sources..
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
"I think I've had to read enough stories in the news recently about teenage girls being raped by people they've met on the Internet to want something changed."
Stop putting 'internet chat rapes' into Google and the problem goes away.
Seriously, a lot of this is bluster because of the relatively simplistic way the whole thing is presented by media and interest groups. 'peadophiles' are the social terrorists for a time when people are trying to shift that uncomfortable problem of telling their kids about 'jiggy' and the relative dangers _of talking to strangers_.
In terms of the last couple of cases of 'chatroom' abuse, all parties have been consenting. In fact the most recent has been a case of a couple of youngsters running away with each other.
The peadophile argument is Godwinesque to the extreme because you can't argue against these things rationally when people start emoting about it. 'Think of the children' is usually trumpeted by people who're on extremely shaky ground.
"If one person is saved by this, then surely it's a good thing?"
Going to extremes to save a single person is never good, especially if you unknowingly place more in danger.
This isn't altruism, this is about cutting a lossmaker. Where chatrooms are controlled, moderated and *logged*, you have some fairly specific information to find people with...driving the whole thing underground doesn't cure the problem, it just makes it harder to control. The vast majority won't give up because a chatroom isn't there, they'll just find someplace else. MS' thing is about dodging possible liability.
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.