A Mechanical Turk-powered “Is This Porn?”Great idea. It just needs two buttons to keep people engaged for hours – “Yes!” and “No :(“
You’ve probably heard that sites like Facebook are rife with sexual predators who count on the naivete of minors to “friend” them and possibly become their next victims, and I see ChatRoulette as a very disturbing amplification of this trend
Doesn’t voyeurism denote that those being watched don’t know that they’re being watched? How does that characterize porn or Chatroullette? Chatroulette sounds more like mutual exhibitionism.In a sense, though, blogging, tweeting, and commenting on others’ blogs is a form of verbal exhibitionism. The main difference with Chatroulette seems to be the video element.
This discussion is going to be way too interesting. I have to get my work done so I can get out before the blizzard fires all the way up! See you all some other time – have a drink for me, ok?!
As coincidence would have it, I attended a presentation at my kids’ school last night on children and social networks. After recently overhearing a 15-year old brag to a friend that she spent “the entire weekend!” on ChatRoulette (setting aside the likely exaggeration), I believe this is worse than simple time-wasting… This is a young, hopeful, impressionable child who could just as easily be your daughter or mine – how could these “adult” video feeds do anything but *harm* her ability to form an opinion of what healthy adult behavior looks like?
i think our responsibility as parents is to talk to our kids about weirdos and deviant 
behavior and prepare them for when they might get hit with it. that way when they do, they’ll know how to react. my kids live in the west village in NYC and walk to school every day. they see transvestite prostitutes on our block on the evenings in the weekends. they understand that they are messed up things and messed up people and don’t let it bother them. i don’t think we can pretend that we can stop our kids from ever coming upon such a thing.
I get the parental responsibility thing, Fred, so why don’t we go ahead and let those charming prostitutes practice their craft in transparent cubes right there at street level (think bedroom-sized versions of the 5th Avenue Apple store)? The prostitutes could more effectively advertise their craft and it’d be a great cultural excursion for the kiddies, who could safely watch from the other side of a pane of glass. Everybody wins!
I must be old, never heard of Chatroulette
Thanks for this comment, Fred. I checked out chatroulette, and I find it very creepy. My immediate thought was: if this is what we have now, what will my 4 year old son experience once he’s online? It’s chilling. But you’re right… this is our world, and I’m responsible for helping him learn to put it into perspective.
What I like about it is it feels like a hark back to the days where the web was more unguarded, where it wasn’t easy to get around and you would stumble across random content – not always anything you wanted to see, but it had that pioneer spirit about it.I don’t know if its for me, but I can totally appreciate the seemingly lawless nature of it; who knows what you might find?
It’s the anti-social network (i.e. not FB or Twitter). That’s going to become more and more prevalent with younger kids as they tend to migrate away from the established mainstream and let’s face it, FB is mainstream. (My 72 year old mom is on it.)More importantly how was Marea? I’m going Thursday and can’t wait. Sounds like I should def get the fusilli. Probably just me, but every time I hear fusilli I think of Kramer’s Fusilli Jerry pasta sculpture
