Yahoo Closes Chat Rooms to Anyone Under 18

Talaria writes "Yahoo has announced that they are closing all of their chat rooms to anyone under eighteen, following an agreement with New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer, who began investigating the Yahoo! chat situation earlier this year, said "We need to be vigilant to protect our children.""

Comments

Won't somebody think of the children?

[Carthag]

Where are they going to chat now?

Re:Won't somebody think of the children?

[femto]

Yahoo's shopping centre?

Re:Won't somebody think of the children?

[xero314]

What? Parents actully have some clue of what their children are doing? Not here in the US (hopefully other countries are a little better than us).

I have been saying this same thing for a long time. I only hope that some day I see a Slashdot article that reads "Parent Jailed for not knowing what their child is doing"

The solution is "easy", even if it is a bit authoritarian. Mandatory sterilization.

Re:Won't somebody think of the children?

[Seumas]

Considering the number of people who molest their kids or have child molestors in their family that abuse their kids and the number of people who seem to look the other way when their underage children are screwing around with adults twice their age, I have to wonder why we don't take children away from all parents. I mean, sure there are some responsible parents just like there are responsible children on the internet, but you can't take that kind of risk. Should just take children out of the home as a preventative safety measure.

Re:Won't somebody think of the children?

[fossa]

How dare anyone be uncomfortable in social situations! The nerve!

Re:Won't somebody think of the children?

[Tink2000]

Sure! Instead of having them molested by families, let's just have them molested by strangers!

Wait, I have a better idea...

WHY DON'T GROWNUPS JUST FUCK GROWNUPS?

Sheesh.

Re:Won't somebody think of the children?

[TheFlamingoKing]

Well, if MTV wouldn't keep shaking preteen ass in my face I wouldn't be so tempted...

Re:Won't somebody think of the children?

[stor]

Well, if MTV wouldn't keep shaking preteen ass in my face I wouldn't be so tempted...

Hey buddy, I think you missed the "Post Anonymously" checkbox.

Cheers
Stor

Re:Won't somebody think of the children?

[NotBorg]

[...] better handled by actual parents moderating chat rooms and moderating their children...

Just the other day I gave my little Johnny a Troll (-1) for posting to a 25 year old woman from Texas. Not that I have anything against Texas, mind you, I just feel that Johnny could do better. She wasn't that hot.

Only by taking an active roll in our kids's lives can this kind of treachery be stopped.

Re:Won't somebody think of the children?

[DrEldarion]

put the napkin on his lamp

That sounds like a fire hazard, we shouldn't be encouraging that.

Re:Won't somebody think of the children?

[dogmatixpsych]

I totally agree with you. Parents need to be more directly involved with their children and not let kids have computers with the internet in their bedrooms. Many parents try to brush off responsibility for their kids onto other sources (which is one reason we have so many dumb lawsuits over children doing or not doing something).

I always know what my daughter is doing online. She never uses the internet unsupervised or goes into chatrooms she shouldn't be in. Of course, she is 9 months old and if I left her alone with the computer I'd have teeth marks in my keyboard.

Re:Won't somebody think of the children?

[Macadamizer]

I just like the fact that anyone who makes such an assertion seems to believe that THEY will surely be above the cut-off line for IQ...

Re:Won't somebody think of the children?

[rdoger6424]

16/F/NYC: OMG!!!!!1! PARENTZ R TEH SUX!!!111one!! LOL OMG WTF BRB JK JK LOLLERSKATES ROFLCOPTER!!!!!!
40/M/NYC: UR RITE! ASL 17/M/NYC

Why should chatrooms be moderated? I don't know.

Re:Won't somebody think of the children?

[Dun Malg]

Sorry, doesn't work that way. Remember, "violence never solved anything".

Such a tired cliche, and totally without basis in fact too. Just ask Tojo, or Hitler, or Napoleon, or Stalin, or the former residents of ancient Carthage whether violence ever solved anything.

Re:Won't somebody think of the children?

[Anonymous Coward]

I solved this problem by installing VNC software on all the computers in the house, waiting until the kids enter a chatroom and engage in... dubious... behavior, and setting the wallpaper to be embarrassing chatlogs right as I walk by to ask them a question about how school was. One child literally threw the monitor off of the desk to keep me from seeing the wallpaper I set. I should have made a video.
Another good one is to keep note of chat logs and start introducing quotes from them into normal conversation. They won't say anything just in case you don't know, but the look on their face is priceless.
Needless to say, my kids have the shit scared out of them every time they're looking at something they shouldn't be. Ah, the joys of being a parent that can code in the internet age ;)

Re:Won't somebody think of the children?

[Anonymous Coward]

I are above IQ! I are not sertilzed. Butt many most people are silly fools are stupid are sertilzed!

Re:Won't somebody think of the children?

[Anonymous Coward]

And a smart person would know how to use the HTML ordered list (<ol> <li>list item one</li> <li>list item two</li> </ol>) instead of having to simulate one with line breaks. To the junk gene pool with you !

Wow, you're a friggin' dork!

Re:Won't somebody think of the children?

[aug24]

I don't like your use of the phrase 'cut-off line' in this context.

There goes

[DustyShadow]

90% of their traffic...

Whew! The perfect solution!

[rbanzai]

Good thing there's no way around this system. It's not like anyone could lie about their age on the internet.

Way to go Yahoo/Spitzer!

This will help a lot

[CaptainCarrot]

Because, you know, there are no other chat rooms anywhere else on the Internet.

Genders next...

[TexTex]

Pretty soon they'll close their chat rooms to men who pretend to be women online... That should cut back on traffic as well.

Re:In other news. . .

[SB5]

And by the end of the year, plans are in place to outfit every child with an ankle bracelet and barcode on their forehead. And children will only be allowed to not leave their residence except for school. All other activities are banned in an effort to be vigilant to protect the children. Children will also not be allowed to play in their yard. Any child violating these laws will be confiscated and sold to the highest bidder. If there are no bids, they will be fed to Cthulhu.

Various Responses

[efuseekay]

(a) Eliot Spitze : Heh Heh Heh. Man, I look like a hero, even though I don't give a damn to those kids who parents should know better.

(b) New York State Parents : Rah rah rah! Our children are safe from sexual predators!

(c) Yahoo! : Heh Heh Heh. As though as we can even try to stop childen from U18 from getting in.

(d) Under 18 Kids: Doh, everyone know you have to pretend to be over 18 to hit on anybody anyway.

(e) Over 18 Perverts : Doh, now I have to *really* try to believe those U18 kids online are simply pretending to be Over 18.

(f) Everyone else : Groan.

Who is this protecting?

[AK Marc]

I've been in the Yahoo chat rooms. I needed protection from those that were claiming to be under 18, not the other way around.

Re:Who is this protecting?

[Kelson]

It's protecting Yahoo from getting sued.

Re:Who is this protecting?

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering bots havent been around for 18 years, no one will be in any of the chat rooms!!

Re:Fragging children.

[Seumas]

Lets just put each child in a room with padded walls, no windows and a TV tuned to Seseme Street 24 hours a day. They will be provided with KidChow(TM) and Water.

Dad, is that you?

Re:And so that stops us how?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's voilà. You sound like a fucking moron when you say "wha-la".

Re:Foolproof adult test?

[Kelson]

How about:

Which income tax form did you file last year?

(a) 1040
(b) 1040EZ
(c) 1040A
(d) Cowboy Neal

aw crap....

[Lehk228]

aw crap, now they are all going to flood in to IRC asking "ASL? ASL? ASL?"

Vigilance!

[GhaleonStrife]

We must be vigilant! So let's be lazy and let the law do our jobs for us!

Re:And so that stops us how?

[clem]

Can we at least omit the accented 'a'? Or do we have to learn Unicode to meet Slashdot's strict level of posting standards?

Re:So what?

[schon]

How do they plan on verifying age? A little checkbox saying "I am at least 18 years old"?

Of course not. They're going to require the user to enter their date of birth. Everyone knows that American schoolchildren won't be able to figure out the math. :o)

Re:And so that stops us how?

[raoul666]

Jeez, give him a break, he's really only 12.

Re:And so that stops us how?

[Anonymous Coward]

plus the using of "your in" when it should of been "you're in"

good to see that American school system in action, leading the world in morons since 1776

Re:And so that stops us how?

[cjHopman]

plus the using of "should of" when it should of been "should have"

irony.

Interesting

[BorgCopyeditor]

I say this in all sincerity, sir. Your ideas interest me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:Asshole.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that would have come across as funny as it did to me to everyone else if you hadn't omitted: '... dad'.