Slashdot Mirror
The Surreal World of Chatroulette
Hugh Pickens writes "The New York Times reports that Chatroulette, the social Web site created by a 17-year-old Russian named Andrey Ternovskiy, drops you into an unnerving world where you are connected through webcams to a random, fathomless succession of strangers from across the globe. The site activates your webcam automatically; when you click 'start' you're suddenly staring at another human on your screen and they're staring back at you, at which point you can either choose to chat (via text or voice) or just click 'next,' instantly calling up someone else. Entering Chatroulette is akin to speed-dating tens of thousands of perfect strangers — some clothed, some not. You see them, they see you. You talk to them, they talk to you. 'It's very strange, and not just because you are parachuting into someone else's life (and they yours), a kind of invited crasher,' writes Nick Bilton. 'It is also the eerie thrill of true randomness — who, or what, will show up next?' The Web has long allowed anonymous conversations among strangers. Text-based chat rooms are rife with deceit — people pretending they are someone else. Video makes this harder — even if you're wearing a mask. 'From my experience on the site, echoed by those I've spoken to, it seems as if 90 percent of users are genuinely looking for novel and unexpected conversation,' add Bilton. 'The rest — well, let's just say they have debauchery in mind.'"
While this sounds interesting, I believe that somebody has finally found an even more useless form of social networking. A standing ovation for him indeed.
Disagree != mod troll.
"Hey you! I got cheap Viagra for you! And I don't even have to spell it in funny ways!"
"Hey sweety, I'm naked. Yes even from my waist down. Can't see it? Come to my website and you can, you can even buy these panties I just took off (swirls panties around finger)"
And I'm pretty sure the pennystock- and late-president's-ransom spammers might come up with something really cool where you get to see a quick action movie and the last words of someone being shot right in front of you is the stock to buy or someone you PLEASE contact quickly.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
'The rest well, let's just say they have debauchery in mind.'
"I put on my robe and wizard hat"
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BMO
... is what I saw. Had a short chat with a guy from Brazil - short because we did not share a language - other than that just a flashing sequence of monkey spanking exhíbitionists.
sofa -- so good
If you want to get a feeling of Chatroulette without "exposing" yourself (or getting exposed to some pretty shocking imagery) you might want to check out this blog:
http://chatroulette.tumblr.com/
He's been collecting dozens (hundreds) of screencaptures that people have been e-mailing him. While you'll still see some disturbing things at least you'll know this isn't happening to YOU, LIVE and hopefully the lack of immediacy will dull the shock a bit. If you can take that, then by all means take the plunge!
(I'm too chicken and have not). By the way, I got this link from TechCrunch, so just wanted to give them credit.
I'm not the 14 year old with the Nazi flag in the background, the Red Army greatcoat, Red Army officer's hat (with Nazi SS skull), Douglas-McArthur style sunglasses and pipe, but I wish I was.
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BMO
Text-based chat rooms are rife with deceit — people pretending they are someone else. Video makes this harder — even if you're wearing a mask
You can lie just as effectively in video chat and in text chat about everything except your appearance. All this quote tells us is that the person who wrote it considers physical appearance to be the most important attribute. I think this says a lot more about the writer than the text chats. The person on the end of a video chat can still be lying about their occupation, hobbies, age, even location. If they're wearing a mask, as he suggests, they can be lying about just about anything except their weight (and possibly even that if it's a close-up).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
As people have pointed out before, this system may have already been co-opted by spammers and such, but I like the idea of being connected to people at random. The internet was supposed to have broadened everyone's horizons by allowing communication between people of different countries, backgrounds, etc. But then everyone just found the people who reinforce their pre-existing opinions. So sure, I'm talking with someone around the world, but we're both, say, talking about linux wifi drivers and complaining about the same company. It's arguably worse for political thought, where either corporations control mainstream thought, and/or conspiracy theorists only pay attention to the one blog with the same conspiracies.
People need more opportunities for true randomness, where they actually do sample evenly from the world's population and interact with someone.
>My concern is about pedophiles
Then you're looking in the wrong direction.
Most child abusers are directly related.
Pedophiles that are a thousand miles away are not the problem.
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BMO
>Not at all, but don't you think it's my place to protect my kids?
1. You cannot "protect" them.
2. You can only teach them to use their heads. This is a teaching moment.
3. They know more about what's going on than you think.
4. The Internet is not a baby sitter.
5. I'll say that again....
6. The Internet is not a baby sitter.
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BMO
I have the sneaking suspicion that you are a troll instead of simply misinformed, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
"To Catch A Predator" is not informative. It's not reality. It's a skewed picture of reality, because sensationalism sells.
Date rape is more prevalent.
Sexual abuse by those with "power" over kids is more prevalent, c.f., Boston Diocese and Irish Catholic Church sex scandals (and that's just the tip of the iceberg).
Abuse by a relative is more likely than you think.
But the last bit never gets much play in the news, because it gets hidden away, because nobody listens to the kids it happens to.
But hey, what do I know. Go ask a social worker or child advocate. Stop watching so much Teevee. It's bad for your brain.
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BMO
Most of the child abusers abuse a child that is related to them or at least already knows them (teacher, priest, ...). This would be more convenient with less risks, for example:
1. The kid probably already trusts the abuser, so the kid may not tell his/her parents about the abuse.
2. The abusers does not need to go grab a random kid off a street where (s)he could be seen.
3. The abuser does not risk that the "kid" online may be a police officer in reality. He already knows the kid and his parents so it is easier to choose the victim (for example, kid is very trusting of others, the parents are alcoholics/drug addicts and care only about the booze/dope and not their kid).
Well, child abusers sometimes do grab a kid off a street, but they are usually promptly found and put in prison. On the other hand, abuse within the family can last a long time.
>No, the internet is not a baby sitter, but I am the one who showed them slashdot.
Let me clue you into something:
If it's in the New York Times and it's Internet related, it's no longer news. Associating the any internet phenomena with sexual assault is not helpful, because even in your own article you just posted, I will bet you that the *vast* majority of those sexual assaults are between people who know each other in real life and would have happened with or without the Internet.
You cannot "protect" your kids from the Internet. They will see stuff you don't approve of at friends' houses. They will see stuff you don't approve of while at the Library. They will see and do stuff in real life that you don't approve of. The only thing you can do is to teach common sense, and better yet, maybe even enroll them into a self-defense or martial arts course if Alaska is the "rape capital of the US."
Enrollment in a self defense course is useful. Getting all excited over perceived threats is not.
If you wrap your kids in a cocoon, you are doing nothing but harming them. The kids who grow up that way do not learn any coping skills whatsoever.
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BMO
I read an article about chatroulette and decided to try it out for myself.
I'd say 75% of people were not interested in conversation of any kind. And maybe 10% were interested in trying to shock you in some way.
The system is open for scamming from people who will beam your webcams output back at you, or pics of goatse.cx or shock pages from encyclopedia dramatica. It might have been a fun conversing tool when there was less than 5000 people on it. But once the crowd from 4chan heard of it, it's too polluted to be fun. (Think Usenet before and after AOL came online)
you son of a bitch! i lost some precious tabs because of that. (porn, mostly. but still, i worked very hard to find them...)
weinersmith
Andy Grove said, 'is Thomas Edison such an overachiever for inventing the lightbulb? ...Because if if he didn't do it, it was inevitably going to be invented by someone.'
Personally, I haven't been paying attention, but I thought Skype already made this possible, and clearly I was wrong.
Wiring up random videocams with each other was bound to happen sooner or later. Duh. This is like basic Darwinian smut technology.
Don't pay attention to the man behind the curtain; in this case it seems to be a pretty cool 17 year old kid who is just as amazed as you or I would be. Good for you kid!
And the global anonymous internet, once given random-video-chat-technology? Well, what were you expecting?
I tried it... after seeing a lot of naked "boy" chests (clearly a lot of high school or college kids showing off their "six pack") it finally stopped on a guy that looked reasonable to chat with.
Chatted with him for about 10-15 mins, just exchanging some random questions and info. Wasn't too bad, except he was from China and his english wasn't so great :)
Overall, definitely has potential for some random social interaction if you have nothing better to do.
Among all the guys who were showing their wang, one of my strangers was from France and playing the accordion live. I brought my 4 month old baby to listen and enjoy and we had some nice conversation after that. That alone compensated for the idiocy of the rest.
This reminds me of the beginning of Logan's Run.