Hold on to your hat … and your child. Channel One is getting back into the chat room business.
Jim Metrock, president of Obligation, said, “There is no need for this company to entice schoolchildren into their chat rooms. Chat rooms are the first things parents block if they are concerned about Internet safety. Channel One’s record on safety is awful. This is the company that asked children to post their pictures on the Internet along with information about themselves. This is the company that allowed children to create private chat rooms to talk to anonymous Internet users. This is the company that asked children for their phone number and address as they registered to use their chat rooms.”
Channel One says they will “certify” users as being “web safe” before they can use the new and improved Channel One chat rooms.
“It will take only one child predator to pass Channel One’s ‘certification’ and a bad situation happens and the ownership of Channel One will pass to the family of a hurt child and their personal injury attorney,” said Metrock. “Channel One needs a chat room only to get children to start coming back to their site. Their site, which use to feature reviews of raunchy movies and sexually-explicit CDs and much more, now is like a vacant lot. If the children come back, then they can start selling banner ads (which also got Channel One in trouble) and then the money will begin flowing in. I urge Channel One executives to drop the idea of chat rooms for children.”
