Obligation has said it for ten years: Channel One’s TV show and its website
are not age-appropriate for middle school students.
Now Channel One agrees with us, at least about the Channel One website.
Below: Last month, this new language was very quietly placed on Channelone.com:
The bold print is Channel One’s.
If you are not yet thirteen (13) years old, please discontinue using the Site
(channelone.com) immediately!!
Channelone.com has been a problem for young people and their parents for years.
There were the self-mutilation
messages on
the very poorly monitored Channelone.com message
boards. There were also (Warning:
explicit language.) disturbing
sexual messages on Channelone.com
before Obligation’s reporting helped close it down. Before that they had chat
rooms were children could create private rooms to talk to Internet "friends."
That practice ended because of Obligation. They also had a feature called ‘Fresh
Faces’ and, I’m not lying, ‘Personal
Ads’ for
young people. If it hadn’t been for Obligation’s reporting, no telling what
harm could have come to some teens and preteens.
Presently chat rooms and message boards are gone from Channel One’s
site, but the company always has the option of bringing them back.
Obligation’s Jim Metrock said, "Channel One’s president Judy Harris now
has a major problem on her hands. She is now telling preteens that they are
not
to visit Channelone.com, yet her in-school TV program shown to children
down to age
ten, continues to plug the website several times during each show. She has
to end all advertisements for Channelone.com that could be seen by preteens.
It will not be enough to have an anchor tell students, ‘For more information,
please visit Channelone.com. Remember if you are under 13, you are not allowed
on our site.’ That will only cause more preteens to visit the site. Ms. Harris
can solve this problem by filming a different broadcast for middle schools.
I hope she takes her own attorney’s advice seriously."
