Habbo Hotel chats silenced over sex allegations

[AngryTechnician]

Habbo Hotel chats silenced over sex allegations - Telegraph

 

A Channel 4 News producer posing as a 13-year-old was asked to strip in front of a webcam "within two minutes" of logging in.

 

Habbo Hotel last night told its 250 million users, known as “Habbos”, it had decided to “mute” the network in response to the allegations.

 

“Habbos, due to the challenging behavior of a few users we have decided to mute the site and will update you when we have more information,” it said via Twitter.

 

Very disappointing and a bit surprising. It wasn't long ago that CEOP used Habbo in their Thinkuknow training as an example of one of the better-moderated services, and yet this has been going on apparently undetected until now.

[Roberto]

To their credit they do appear to have taken prompt action once they found out about the problem.

We all know that no matter how "apparently safe" a website is, there's just no substitute for parental supervision of a child's Internet use

[FN-GM]

A major investor has also pulled out of the company because of this. looks like its hitting the fan in the office.

[TheScarfedOne]

There is a big item about this on Channel 4 now.

[Edu-IT]

To their credit they do appear to have taken prompt action once they found out about the problem.

It's been an issue for many years. They've outsourced some of their moderation work and cut back left right and centre, which has potentially caused further issues. This hasn't just happened over night. It's just the first time that somebody has highlighted it in such a high profile way that they're having to address it.

[X-13]

yet this has been going on apparently undetected until now.

 

Nope. This has been well known for a loooooong time.

 

I'm surprised it's taken this long to be reported in the news... I remember people talking about shenanigans on Habbo back when I was at school.