Accused Molester Hunted On Xbox Live

GamePolitics has the unfortunate task of reporting that an accused child molester evidently found his victim via Xbox Live. From the piece: "Watts made contact with the boy on Xbox Live in October or November. Their contacts ultimately included e-mails and pornographic videos sent by Watts. The boy eventually gave the suspect his contact information, leading to a meeting in a Santa Rosa park where the alleged molestation took place. After learning of the complaint, investigators searched Watts' home, seizing his Xbox and a laptop PC, along with a variety of cameras. Watts is currently free on bail."

Comments

As I was telling my friend...

[oahazmatt]

...This is a very good example of why I find the Nintendo WFC to be very well designed in terms of child safety. There are no WFC chat programs (currently) available, and the only way to seek a friend through Mario Kart or Animal Crossing is to already have their ID# (and vice-versa). I specifically stated possible sexual predators seeking out children to my friend when he was complaining of the lack of free chat and messaging services.

But nor do I blame XBox live. Ultimately the fault and blame is on the assailant. I simply think Nintendo was wise to structure such a limited network, especially with games targeted at younger audiences.

Re:As I was telling my friend...

[Dark Paladin]

I agree. I was mentioning the same thing to my wife the other day, how I would let my daughter play the Mario Kart on line. Animal Crossing at least means she has to "know" the other person first - which I can still monitor at a young age.

I'm curious to see if something similar happens on the upcoming Pokemon DS games. Matches can easily be done without exchanging a word - you find an opponent (either random or you enter their 16 digit code a la "Animal Crossing" for someone you know). But you don't have to do any speaking. A simple message of "This opponent wants to fight you!", or "this person wants to trade pokemon".

You don't even have to know the names of their pokemon - just "player sent out an oddish" and using the generic names prevents people from "player sends out penisbreath" or something inane. All that remains is a simple filter to keep out bad player names, and it will be pretty kid friendly and still entertaining. If you need to speak "out of bounds", you're welcome to use email/IM/real world chat.

As cool as Xbox live? Probably not - but as a guy with three little ones, certainly something I could trust.

Not a big deal

[Henry V .009]

Sorry to burst your bubbles slashdotters, but there are few teenage homosexual boys that don't wind up having sex with 20-somethings at some point.

Re:Please mod above as TROLL

[hoggoth]

> I can't comprehend how anyone could actually go along with anything like that and expect the outcome to be positive

Perhaps he is a gay 14 year old who was thinking he could get sex and did. Perhaps the outcome was positive from his point of view, even though it was immoral and illegal from the adults point of view.

I remember being 14. If I could have gotten a woman in her early 20s to have sex with me I would have in a heart-beat! Actually I did try a few times to "hit on" college age girls, only to be shot down of course.

I'm not condoning the adult's terrible predatory behavior. He should (and DOES) know better and should be put away. But that doesn't mean the 14 year old didn't want the same thing the adult wanted. He's 14. He doesn't understand the power difference between himself and an adult and why that can't be allowed because of the potential for bad outcomes.