'Underage Chat'

Suzie from Washington DC -

I had posted in another area about the Dateline Investigations and it made me think about the issue of underage chat moderation. Why isn't there a moderator that can see these conversations between teens and older men? All chat sites should have moderators that can see private message conversations so that pedifiles can be stopped.

Comment #1 Elroy from New York -

The first problem is how do you know if someone is underage? Kids will easily enter "18" as they age... don't you think?

Comment #2 shaun from nova scotia -

Yeah I believe it's literally impossible to prevent underage people from chatting in rooms that they shouldn't chat in. All they have to do is provide a birthdate that matches somebody over the age of 18. They could even use a different name etc. Best way to prevent a kid from using the internet for inappropriate things is to not even get a computer for the kid! Heh.

Comment #3 Suzie from Washington DC -

You both make really good points. I guess the only thing to do is let parents monitor them. But, there are many parents that work and kids are home alone. I just wish there was a way to protect those kids. I suppose they could get a tracking system, but many parents just try to trust their kids.

Comment #4 Eileen from The Blogosphere -

We just had an incident here where a 14 year old had said that she was 18 years old. She then ran off to be with her 35 year old boyfriend in another state. Personally, I think this falls back on the parents. They need to be more aware of what their kids are doing online.

Comment #5 jnights from Watching my back -

I put it down to 2 issues. Firstly, it's impossible to verify age unless you use paid 3rd party solutions which are costly and time consuming and simply wouldn't work for something as common place as a standard message board and secondly because moderation takes a lot of time and effort and most forums would not be able to operate under such pressure.

Comment #6 Donna Raymond (66.243.193.254) -

hey what's up out there so who what to talk?

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