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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.""
Where are they going to chat now?
90% of their traffic...
Because, you know, there are no other chat rooms anywhere else on the Internet.
And the brethren went away edified.
New York officials also annouced plans to close public parks to anyone under 18. They made this decision after realizing that child predators know that children like to play unsupervised in parks. When asked about this decision, officals replied "We need to be vigilant to protect our children."
Pretty soon they'll close their chat rooms to men who pretend to be women online... That should cut back on traffic as well.
-Barkeep, a draft of your most hazardous brew, for the world is slowly stepping into focus, and I don't like what I see.
For once, a potential threat to children is solved by kicking the kids out of the room, instead of limiting adult speech.
Verification issues aside, I think it's high time we adopted the "but your kids don't belong here" approach to more shit, and not just the fucking internet.
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?
It's voilà. You sound like a fucking moron when you say "wha-la".
I'm sorry but this is like using the new "Internet Explorer Enhanced Security Feature" If it's broken disable it! What's next, do we box up our kids, feed them through a slot and not let them out until they are 18? IMHO The Neo-Con(artist) mentality of "You have nothing but fear" (VS You have nothing to fear but fear itself) has reached a new low with this one.
I apologize for being a bit too political here but I'm growing increasingly tired of this Liberal psuedo Religious Republican fear mongering that has gripped America. These preditors exist because they know the following.
1. Mommy and Daddy are too busy going to Politcal Fund Raisors, Drinking beer on the back porch or attending bible thump sessions to attend to their children.
2. The state has told the parents over and over. Shut up we are better at children than you are. Screw, give birth and turn them over to us, and the state hasn't a clue how to protect them.
3. If parents do get involved in monitoring their children and caring for them and the state finds out. BIG trouble. (You slapped your childs hand and made it cry!..... Child abuse charges will follow.)
4. The more laws and "protections" the state envokes the easier it becomes to get around the sytem.
5. If you have enough money and donate wisely, you can do as you will.
Now this carp. Wow. Now we are fully admitting to our children that we as adults aren't capable of doing anything to protect them or guide them. No wonder so few of them trust us. On this thought I'll remind so many of you what happened in Romania. The goverment forced it's people to give up child care to the state. Now, most of those children are HIV positive and or dead. Get on the Clue train America, We won't protect our children by hiding the world from them, The only way to protect them is to show them the full extent of the danger then give them the tools and the knowledge on how to deal with it.
My 3 year old a while back was approached by a gentlemen as I watched. The gentlemen (an arthritic grandfather type, I sensed no danger but watched) started to speak to him and he said "Do I know you?" The gentlemen replied "No" and my son said. "Then I can't talk to you till you talk to my daddy first." (btw he got a big hug and a small candy for his actions) The words where his, but the idea of not talking to strangers unless mommy or daddy ok it was a tool I gave him to deal with the world.
People, Tell the government to go abuse itself. You are not dumb and incompitent like they keep telling you, that you are. You are capable of making decisions and dealing with your children. Despite the fact that you voted for these parisites on the teats of the political whore.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
I spent my childhood on the eastern block, in a country to remain nameless (near the black sea , that should narrow it down) and every child's parent was responsible for their own... and you know what? VERY FEW if ANY of the kids I knew, and I grew up in the equivalent of "the hood" and ran the equivalent of a "gang" (small one at that, about 8 or 10 members) and played in soccer clubs and came home late at night...
:)
Difference being, my father taught me to fight, my mother to avoid problems such as getting in cars with strangers... thus, when I left my home, dad knew other kids would come to complain that I beat the fuck out of them (yep, and I was the little guy) and mom knew that he wouldn't "rightfully punish me" (he'd ask, "why, so he can learn that defending himself is wrong?")
Sadly in the fine USA, justice is a forgotten term, and "consequences" are only monetary... many a time a good punch in the face would teach far more than a lawsuit. Many people who are OH so biblical forgot the old adage about sparing the rod.... Parents are sparing EVERYTHING from their kids, starting with the proverbial rod and ending with the very real absence of involvement of any kind.
Fuck the system, when I decide to have kids, they will be raised right... it worked for me, worked for my brother, worked for my father who weathered several wars in the military and only ended up getting hurt being run over by a drunk driver (yeah, go fucking figure, eh?) It also worked for several dozen of my former friends from childhood, all of whom grew up, grew up well, and are extremely self reliant... not something very common in the USA where everyone expects to get approval from the system before moving on. Fuck it all. Live life like its yours, because it is. Too many want to have it lived for them... and Bush, Cheney, Gates, the supreme court and company will be glad to do it for you, since you pay them every time they make a decision for you.
I say, fuckem all... I'll live my life the way I want to, I will abide by the honor code **I** impose upon myself, and when someone trespasses against me, without it being a mistake... well, I defend myself and I don't need a gun to break their arm in three different places if that is what it comes down to
~D
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
Here's an earlier report about Yahoo and MSN merges IMs
And here's a story about a nobody talking smack about Linux IM clients.
Both topics are chock full of MSN IM astro-turfing goodness. Check it out. Looks like the start of a marketing campaign for MSN Messenger 7.
First and most important: Who mandates it? Nobody has authority over the interwebbernet.0 7XLONC/ref=pd_sbs_a_4/102-1256598-6028138?_encodin g=UTF8&v=glance
.xxx tld when they can get more profit from a .com? Because of potential us law you propose? Only people that care about silly US laws are silly US citizens.
.kids tld (or better yet, an entire arin assignment or VPN you could limit your kids inside), which anybody could set up and be responsible for. If you could get a few big isps behind it, you'd have a large enough base that the big names (Disney, Nick, etc) would want access to host their sites inside your system, and the only stuff inside would be safe.
.xxx, you'll never block the millions of nude pictures already out there lurking in peoples personal sites, forgotten dir indexes, and whatever else.
That said, what defines adult content?
What about a national geographic-style site that would include topless women from some tribe in africa?
What about a site selling underwear? For example, you can see bush on this amazon ad: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00
What about webcam sites where people are free to be as nude or not-nude as they like?
What about informative sites teaching kids about their own body? (clitical, jackinworld, etc)
What about non comercial personal pages that include nudes (Be they self nudes, or "my wild vacation pictures", or whatever).
The gray area is huge. But again, more importantly, who can mandate such a requirement? Why would someone want to host their site in a banned by many
The better proposal is a
Even if you could block a
Pain lasts, kid. Its how you know you're alive. Sometimes I think this growing up thing is just pain management-TheMaxx
How do they plan on verifying age? A little checkbox saying "I am at least 18 years old"?
:o)
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.