February 28th, 2010

Chatroulette: A Bright Chat Service or Scary Child Predator Magnet?  Chatroulette is a new Internet craze that many are excited about.  It was created by a Russian teenager, and the basic premise is that you can chat with people all over the world.  Using Chatroulette, a teenager in Birmingham, Alabama could speak with someone in Norway one second and someone in Japan the next.

Then, before the unsuspecting child knows it, a naked man could pop up on the screen.  Adversaries of Chatroulette are concerned that child predators will be able to use the system to hunt down victims.  The problem with the new service is that there’s no screening of potential users.

To move from person to person, all you have to do is hit the F9 key on your keyboard.  You can see all sorts of zany people – and that can be quite amusing.  However, that can also be troublesome as well.

To use the service, the site says you have to be over the age of 16, but there’s not any way of identifying how old someone is.  This means it’s relatively easy for a young child to lie about his or her age, which gives child predators something to hunt for on the site.

Quick research on the site indicates that the servers are located in Germany, meaning that there’s not much that the US can do to regulate such activity.  However, the idea of Chatroulette is novel, and there are some ways that the service could be improved – for everyone.

For instance, the current age floor of 16 could be appropriate.  However, they should have a Chatroulette teen which would allow teenagers to flag users who were not actually 16-18 on the site. If too many problems came from this, then the site could become an “adult only” meeting space.

Then, they could implement Chatroulette adult, and make it a paid service requiring a credit card.  The service doesn’t have to be expensive, but the use of a credit card alone showcases an age in excess of 18 or in some instances 21.  This also gives a log of the identities of the people on the site, should the need arise.`

It’s understandable that many people are outraged about the newest internet craze – especially parents of younger children who spend a lot of time online. However, the idea of networking and seeing people from around the world is exciting for many.

Parents can also block the Chatroulette site from their internet browser if they don’t want their child to access the service. For instructions on how to complete this task, click here.

What do you think about Chatroulette?

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