Why all the fuss about Habbo Hotel?
“It’s not Syria” screamed one complainant on my Twitter feed… It set me thinking about the news priorities which led us to spend so much of Channel 4 News on the past two nights devoted to the goings on in and around Habbo Hotel, the social gaming and online community for teenagers.
Well, let’s deal with scale. The Finnish company that owns Habbo boasts that it is the biggest site of its kind in the world. Big it is – a quarter of a billion people have accessed the site globally. The turnover last year was over £30m. The site has its own currency and hosts discussion forums.
Let’s deal then with what it is. It’s an online fantasy world aimed at young teens but frequented by all ages including the very young and the much older. It has the feel of a real hotel where you get provided with a basic room with a bed and a table. But as in life, you want your room to be special, so you can buy gift cards with Habbo Hotel credits on the terrestrial high street to purchase things to improve your room. As of yesterday those retail outlets here ceased as WHSmith, Tesco, and GAME decided close their involvements in the aftermath of our revelations about what else was going on in Habbo Hotel.
Within the hotel a virtual social life unfolds. You can assume any identity in the form of an avatar and make virtual relationships with other avatars. Who they are in real life remains a mystery, and that can remain the case even after you’ve been approached and asked by person or persons unknown to to leave the Hotel and to make more direct contact with them on a one-to-one basis, on another platform – Facebook perhaps, MSN or Skype, and ultimately potentially to meet in real life.
But into this world stomp people who, in short, want sexual gratification out of this virtual fantasy world; they are people who want people to go on a webcam and undress and more. Some may be older teens, others alarmingly older and more malicious of intent than that.
Does it matter? In my view it goes to the very heart of the tension between the liberation and freedoms that the internet has wrought and the risks that it has inaugurated particularly for the very young.
I have spoken often of late of the dawning of the golden age of journalism – and I believe we are on its very doorstep right now. But at the same time, what the Habbo Hotel furore reveals is the genuine potential for the internet to facilitate on an industrial scale theft of the innocence of childhood.
Read more: Habbo and online gaming – how do I protect my child?
In my office yesterday I heard a father bemoan the loss of time with his child – lost to the computer games to which his five-year-old son is already addicted. We are bound to ask what long-term effect gaming addiction; exposure to sexual advances; and pedophile seductions will have on our children.
When I was six years old, I was the victim of sexual assault by a member of the domestic staff at the school where my father taught. I was saved from what could have developed into a potentially much more severe sexual attack by someone who had seen what was going on and reported it in time for a teacher to rush to the assailant’s room and rescue me. That experience is with me to this day. How will the virtual version of what happened to me affect future generations of 9,10, and 11-year-olds?
As a generality most of us don’t want the internet regulated – it’s probably too late to achieve it anyway. What makes the Habbo case so dramatic and important are the ways in which it has come to light and how these revelations have affected its activities. As I write, an initial response of the company running the site has been to “mute” the site – conversations among visitors to the Hotel are suspended, whilst the company carries out its own inquiries.
So far “regulation”, by some third official force, has proved absent. The unravelling of Habbo’s hotel life has come about not from the actions of any regulator, but through media digging, and market response. Habbo’s two biggest investors, controlling a third of the holding company’s capital, have already bailed out, taking their their multimillion pound investments with them.
Can we trust the market, or indeed the media, always to respond quite so coherently? Given the tenderness of those at risk, can we in turn risk leaving redress for corporate cyber misbehavior to the market?
You’ve guessed it – Habbo may not be Syria, but it does represent a seminal moment in our relationship with cyberspace, and, I would argue therefore worthy of the very considerable time and effort we have devoted to the story.
Follow @jonsnowC4 on Twitter.
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There are 63 comments on this post
Yes but, more seriously, you are completely ignoring the number of terrorist attacks on police officers in Northern Ireland. N. Ireland is part of the UK but it would appear your news programme does not think it worthy of even a small news item.
Saddening.
Well said, Jon – and very brave of you to mention your own experience of abuse and theft of your childhood right to innocence and security.
There’s no such thing as a safe social network, no matter the moderation or filtering implemented. The moment you start interacting with others online is the moment you start taking the risk that this sort of thing will happen.
Parents are being fooled by ISPs and mobile phone companies trying to sell their children products that the internet can truly be safe for children. It can’t. Parents will always need to be involved in keeping an eye on what their children are doing, but the companies in question prefer to give a false sense of security so that nobody ever questions whether children should be using their products unsupervised in the first place.
The fact that parents are so shocked that paedophiles might be hanging around websites used by children – this is news? seriously? – just goes to show how badly the parents themselves need to be educated so that they can properly teach their own children in turn.
I’m curious: where are the parents in all of this? How many parents of Habbo users took the time to talk to their children about the risks of interacting with others online? How many of them even knew of these risks?
You have completely taken the words from my mouth. This statement right here says it all. Why point all of your fingers at Habbo Hotel when parents clearly aren’t teaching their kids about online safety. They tell their children not to take candy from strangers, well how about not to give out any personal information on the internet.
This whole incident angers me so much. The other day I saw one of greatest tweet I’ve seen through this whole mess. “If a peado approaches children in a park, you don’t blame the park”
Agreed 100%
Has anyone has a look at Moshi Monsters – have heard some bad things from other mums and it’s for an even younger audience – 5yr olds plus
The reason Habbo users are angered is because they believe the report was biased. And now that Sulake are in a tricky situation and is at risk of closure, they are even more angry. I personally believe it is Channel 4 News’ fault, as these incidents occur in every single other online game, there is no reason Habbo should be attacked over others.
It’s interesting how some teenagers go as far as committing suicide because of bullying that happens online on other social networks, yet the fact that this involves activities on websites that do actively moderate their content is conveniently forgotten in this report.
There is no such thing as a safe social network.
You’re not allowed to join habbo hotel unless your 13 or older, most people who play are around 15 – 20. The reason you found pedos was because you were going in to rooms called naughty nightclub and talking to people like dirtyboy etc.
Basically you were looking for pedos, you’re average 13 year old girl isn’t going to be looking for pedos, and if they are indeed found by these people they have several options: Ignore the user, mute the user, kick the user out of the room, enter a different room with so many options available only someone extremely stupid would fall prey to these people and I believe that responsibility falls to the parents who educate their children, but again anyone 13 years or over should know how to handle such a situation adequately and just avoid the situation altogether.
I think it’s important that Channel 4 acknowledges how terrible this news report has become, habbo hotel is on the brink of closing down and habbos are now unable to communicate with eachother. This has resulted in millions of bully victims, disabled people, anxious people and plain lonely people losing the only friends they have in the world. Channel 4 should be ashamed!.
The Channel 4 News producer who worked on this story responds: “We did not go looking for specific rooms, our research was carried out by simply clicking the ‘Find New Friends’ button, which then directed us to a variety of rooms. We certainly did not go looking for it, and the sexual conversations we experienced were not limited to the sexually-named rooms.”
Does the producer have any idea what proportion of these explicit chats are started by teenagers themselves? Children have been known to do this – the issue of smartphones and sexting comes to mind.
While no one can doubt the seriousness of Syria, I would hazard a guess that the last two nights’ coverage of Habbo on C4News has had more direct effect than all the stories on Syria, no matter how brilliant the journalism.
I often get moved/agitated/incensed by what I see on the news but feel helpless to change anything. But with the Habbo story parents as well as investors and retailers can act to make instant changes.
If only it was that straight forward with politicians
‘Instant changes’?
If the parents had just taken the time to check out what their kids were using – just a couple of minutes would have been enough judging from the report on Channel 4 – then they wouldn’t need to take action now. They would have already seen what was going on and stopped their children from playing the game.
This whole incident is a testament to how badly parents carry out the parenting of their own children in all things online.
Allowing your children to interact with others online unsupervised is like letting them go out the front door and talk to the first stranger that they meet.
You wouldn’t allow them to do that in the real world, but somehow it’s alright to do it online because some other stranger who you don’t personally know tells you it’s all OK and of course nothing bad would ever happen.
This whole investigation on Habbo is ridiculous.
Everywhere you go has paedophiles, nothing can stop them unless you report/block them—features which Habbo has to allow the user to do so, the same with Facebook etc.
If you’re under 13, you should’t be on Habbo (so basically that reporter broke the Terms of Conditions, tut tut.) and what kind of person lets their child on a website for TEENAGERS without supervision?
I started Habbo at a young age (I had no knowledge of age limits, I joined every social network site as a child and my parents trusted me enough to do so and I was responsible, of course they monitored me.)
I have never experienced any problem with paedophiles in my entire 9 years of playing Habbo. And plus, purposefully clicking the rooms on Habbo with ‘dating’, ‘sex’ or ‘kissing booth’ in the title and not the GOOD rooms is obviously going to land you in trouble.
I’m utterly confused as to how the reporter managed to make out ‘webcam sex’ from a bunch of stars due to the filter.
In my eyes, Channel 4 are power hungry. GG, but Habbo’s not going anywhere.
Where was this story, say, 10 years ago when young people actually cared about Habbo? I remember the days of 2001 and 2002 fondly playing the game aged 10. Was only a threat if your naivety made it so.
On top of the last comment I left, which will most likely not be accepted for it damages your image which is held high only because of your social rank and range, the last report, in essence, has only put fear into the malleable minds of children – and paranoia into the hearts of adults. Children are cute, there is a natural affinity adults have with kids, as a father or mother does with its’ child; the result of what you say will have adults thinking “Am I a paedophile for thinking that kid is cute”, this train of thought can lead to hysteria or confusion, and evidently paedophilia as it grows on them. And the child, who fears paedophiles in the passive; the greatest feat you can accomplish is overcoming your fears, and the best pleasure is doing that which you cannot do; the children who you injected this fear into are more likely to become paedophiles by the natural harmonics in nature. I happen to be an expert on this subject. Your ideas are wrong, simple as that, putting one story on the ground for social chaos to entail, and then leaving it as you jump back to Syria, is not smart news and I won’t be watching your channel again… You have a new enemy… Interesting.
What about the fact that Habbo is hosting gambling… kids are running casinos on Habbo Hotel, using dice that Habbo sells. Kids are gambling and getting addictet, getting cheatet, and Habbo has NO consequenses for the cheaters. Everything is on “your own risk”.
Can you imagine what this is doing to our children?
Is Channel4 going to dig into this?
Habbo and Sulake has not been listening to people that have warned and warned more about this for a loong time. They didn´t listen. Now they pay the price.
You’re a news site that is not allowing two sides of the story to be shown. That’s not news that is brainwashing. Stop censoring competing comments!
Classic news channel bias >:(
Bravo @channel4news – just watched programme for first time – and thank you, Jon, for revealing your personal experience. We need to share our upsetting childhood experiences if we’re to understand why we become the grown-up children aka ‘adults’ we do and, more importantly, to enable us to forgive those who’ve hurt us in whatever way (sexual/physical abuse generally the lesser of the problems). Am a signed-up heathen but forgiveness essential for personal freedom and emotional development. Repressed anger/hatred traps us from growing/sharing/loving others. Sharing experiences can help show that there’s nothing to fear but fear, that we’re not alone.
Rentiers making millions out of virtual work (pun intended) are a parasitic bunch, boosting profits by outsourcing ‘moderation’ abroad. Changed response of Sulake’s CE (?) Lafontaine as story unfolded on C4 – from arrogant to apologetic – says it all.
Syria and Habbo Hotel not mutually exlusive. HH raises question of what sort of society we want to live in. Surely that’s the most important question we need to be asking ourselves as the greed of profiteering world (of which HH a part) begins to strangle us with its feral tentacles?
Hello, I’ve been using habbo hotel since 2010. The hotel does need to clean its act up and get more moderators. I once called for help and it took around 10minutes before i got told someone had delt with the situation.
New users and parents of younger users need educating into how to use the mute buttons, when someone is a danger and how to report users that are dangerous. Every online community has its dangers, Just like real life. I mean, you wouldn’t let your 9year old child wander around a park alone, so why should they be in cyberspace? I think it’s very unfair how everyone is muted, Not everyone on habbo is a danger or a pervert. I enjoy talking to my friends or playing some of the games With other users, its not all wierdos asking for cam sex or personal details.
Habbo isn’t a bad site, I’ve had many happy memories on it and i hope i will continue to do so. This mute is ridiculous and unfair on loyal users. Many people have gone to ”retro hotels” due to the mute. These have less moderators and are more of a danger then sulake’s habbo as retro habbos don’t have many mods at all. Retro hotels offer free coins to users and attract even younger children then habbo.
Hello Jon,
In a Europe where the Politicians use the same lame toothless regulations that they introduced, as an excuse for years of inaction, in the face of unacceptable practice and business, our last hope, is that Journalists will stand up and say, look, this is not right, it should stop now. Well done, Jon. Keep up the good work. BZs to the team.
Laters
Rachel
I said it once and I repeat it again- analysis paralysis. You criticize habbo but offer no solutions. Why don’t you teach parents how to regulate what their children do and see while they’re online? I think it’s great that you focus on the dangers of cyber games, but I was greatly disappointed with the way that you give a misleading impression of adolescents in habbo. Stop saying we’re promiscuous little beings because we’re not. Many of us play habbo to have a fun time and decorate our rooms. What’s wrong with that? You have no right to establish regulations. You have no right to establish normative worldwide standards of behavior. Now, since you have categorized me as a promiscuous adolescent, I have the right to say that you’re biased and eurocentric. Your report reflects centuries of social oppression and sexual hysteria. Take a course on human sexual behavior to understand how your anxieties are the result of regulations established during the Victorian Era. Almost forgot! Tell the father of that five year old that if he spent more time with his son, maybe he wouldn’t be addicted to Habbo. Never underestimate youth. A degree doesn’t make you any better/more powerful than us.
Where was this story when the perverts got put in prison for grooming the girls? And why only now are you making a big deal out of Habbo? Also, why haven’t you looked at any other site that you’re able to talk on like IMVU which in my opinion is a helluva lot worse than habbo. Honestly, you’ve wrote a biased story on ONE part of habbo. Did you ever come and meet the kind people of Habbo? Not all of us are perverts and not all of us take part engaging in sexual activity. Oh wait I forgot you were only interested in the sexual part of Habbo posing as an 11 year old girl which is a violation of the TOS.
I feel that this was an attack on one site while not actually exposing the real issue. Habbo has been around since 2001 long then lots of sites like chatroulette,MIRC,myspace,secondlife. They also have lots of young users and lots of pedophiles. Log onto any of these services and you will get sexual messages and even videos sent to you straight away.
Why pick on one site instead of addressing the issue of kids using the net? Closing habbo will not stop lots of kids getting exposed to this stuff. It will drive them onto worse sites.
This is exactly the sensationalist kind of news Chris Morris was making a satirical twist on during Channel 4′s Brass Eye Pedophile Special.
I find it very odd that channel 4′s premier programme Mini Pops seemed to have a very similar feel to the news report and the mix of sexuality and child like imagery.
It is quite surprising that the CEO of Sulake claims to plain the game every day, is a parent and is apparently unaware of the deviant behaviour that permeates every corner of his site. Is he completely blind? Or is his response typical of a CEO who has wilfully ignored the sewer that the users find themselves in. Seems to me that the almighty buck rules, everyones’ safety is ignored in deference to those pounds.
You have made a new enemy channel 4..or maybe a million or so..
So i’ve been playing Habbo since 2002 and never have i come across such things, im now 21 years old and still go on Habbo as much as i can so i can talk to people ive met over the years. Theres many sides of Habbo, it tends to be the new people that join Habbo that end up doing the stuff such as all the sex and all that kinda stuff. thats around 10% of Habbo.. the rest of the Hotel isnt how you have made it out to be, instead of having 1 on 1 convos on msn and skype friends that we have met over the years can come together and talk as a group to make it less boring when we have time to go on Habbo. The only thing bad about Habbo is that only one Mod on the hotel at once.. thats mainly because they hire mods from non english speaking countrys and give them auto replys to send when they get call for helps. Bring back the Hobba System!
It is extraordinary how some people can twist a story into something dangerous to suit their own agenda. I won’t comment further on the post from DDOS, because my name is on my posting, and I don’t wish to attract his obloquay.
Thank you, Jon, for your sad story. Many women suffer sexual assaults in confused silence, in fact there are few who avoid completely assault short of rape. It’s just too common. We do well to remember that young boys are equally at risk and that the effects of such attentions from adults are just as traumatising.
C4 has done an excellent job in high-lighting this problem, as with other neglected areas of concern, C4 has once more shown how to be a caring newsroom and to challenge big business.
I think you should pay atttention, please. It’s not even Jon’s story. All this time I thought that rape involved some type of physical contact. Dunno, I think you’ve completely transformed its definition.
Young boys AND girls,silly.
If you’re a mother or are planing to have children some day, you have nothing to complain about. Like many, you’ll engage in that ”dangerous” act that we “promiscuous” children have engaged in, right?
I know very litle about Habbos, but I remember visiting chat rooms out of curiosity 10 or more years ago and found that they were a playground for the hysterical , deranged and sexually perverted. I am sure there are decent folks there as well , but I was too scared to pursue these places after a couple of characters threatened my naive patter.
I am reliably informed that these sexual verbal and real deviations occur to a greater extent amongst the unemployed. I wonder how they afford their computers?
I myself would not categorise as it causes great offense to others in the same catagorie.For instance as a divorced single parent working all the hours god sent in the 80′s under extreme stress I was fired at by the press , religious groups, individuals , political parties for being the ‘single parent’ who was a drain on society. I did a darn site more work than most for half the pay , long hours and was over taxed. It was hate-speak and bullying and spoke of the class I had been thrown into..vile words and pigeon holing made my life very difficult.
Lets think individual and stop bringing many down ,paradoxically, they only clump together to find solace in their shared activities.
You can’t blame Habbo for the fact that parents let their youngsters roam unattended on the internet,by txt with mobile phones or any other material method.
The must have society not only has to have every electrical appliance going ,but also their children the same from a very early age.
Sex lessons in primary school irrespective of the fact they leave unable to read,write or do arithmetic.
What kind of society have or are we becoming.Youngsters roam the streets in feral gangs and the TV complain of bullying.They bring psychiatrists,the witch doctors of medicine to show the perceived affects,instead of concentrating on education and morals and how to bring back childhood stolen by political idealists.
If ever there was a time ,now is the time for back to basics
What you must ask yourself is .. ‘what are the basics?’
ruling with an iron rod?
teaching by example?
defining what is good and not good?
teaching social skills from nursery age?
teaching non violence?
Reading and arithmetic in my opinion are not the basics. The basics begin with gentleness and bringing babies , infants into life with tenderness and demonstrating tolerance , empathy and kindness . We see the mother who screams at her kids from yards away , threatening them with violence with an arsey smart aggressive look on their face with a fag hanging out of their mouths as they put 2 fingers up to passers by.It follows that their children will accept that behaviour as the norm.
sorry Margaret,what you are describing is ordinary parenting ,and with the absense of the family perhaps that needs to be taught.Yet youngsters need to learn the basic reading writing arithmetic and above all else how to be children ,not grown up by the age of eleven.
A major part of the problem is TV,mobile phones and the internet.All very dangerous media to young minds and too those that seek to prey on young minds.
I don’t know the answers but if we don’t find them ,we might as well destroy the earth for it will no longer be a place worth living on.
This is NOT ordinary parenting…I am talking about bad family backgrounds .Family backgounds where 4 or more in a family are irresponsible do more harm than a one to one parent family where that one is a guardian of demonstrating responsible behaviour.E.g. the family who all smoke hashish with the kids around
Twenty years ago when the internet was first emerging, it was obvious to we early-adopters that its later, more public, acceptance would only be driven by its less desireable traits. Just like early printing, home-movies and VHS, much of the early base-load demand was for ‘rude’ stuff, and so it was with the Web.
It is an inherently free medium and no amount of state censorship will be able to constrain it – the instant mobility of its servers and users precludes that. But do we want censorship ? Do we want our political debates to be constrained ? Or the exposure of scandals ? Or our social development ?
“But what about the Cheeeldren ?” they scream. Well, it’s the parents’ task to ensure that their offspring are only ever exposed to the more challenging aspects of life when they are ready for them, and the internet is just another of those aspects: like crossing the road, walking to school alone or having sex.
All internet interface channels, not just Habbo, offer the opportunity for ‘unhealthy’ contact between children and others. Parents who allow this uncontrolled contact are failing to accept their own responsibilities, and C4 News may be helping that process.
FINALLY some coverage on what is really going on in primary school childrens’ lives. I have tried to reach the parents, to teach them how to keep their children safe online, along with the police. Few turn up to our evenings. I teach the children the rules and pray they remember them. Increasingly I get more and more frightened for them. I raise money every year to put them on a safe, mediated site, Superclubsplus. The WORST thing Teresa May did was abolish the separate CEOP. Bring it back ASAP. Parents should wake up to what their children are up to. Excellent to hear children on TV telling us what is happening. I have been listening to it in classrooms for the past 8 years.
If only one child was saved from getting drawn into a serious situation then it was worth it.
Great job Jon.
In which case, let’s ban all surgical operations so that no-one is ever put at risk of a negative outcome.
Let’s ban all road transport, so that no one is ever again killed or injured by a vehicle.
Let’s ban all television, so that no-one ever sees anything they might dislike.
Got the message ?
And in such a case where was that one child’s parents?
The problem with moderation and filtering is that it perpetuates the myth that the internet can be safe for children, and gives the parents the sorts of justification they need to abdicate any sort of parental responsibility for their child’s online activities. They seem to prefer to offload that responsibility onto other people with the end result that other internet users end up surrendering their own rights to privacy to satisfy the needs of the parents that refuse to do the parenting.
If parents truly want their children to be safe online then they should always be keeping a watchful eye on them, just as they would if they were in a crowded town centre.
If a child was caught out by this website then as far as I’m concerned this is little better than neglect on the part of the parents given the level of explicit chat going on. And the parents are the true source of the problem if they either can’t be bothered or are unable to properly supervise their own children.
It’s not MY job to parent YOUR children.
If your kids are roaming about unsupervised on the internet and get into some sort of trouble because of it, it’s the PARENT’S fault for not teaching them how to behave online.
My parents taught me very clearly about what was okay and what was not okay to do with strangers I meet over the internet. And guess what? I’ve never had a single encounter with a pedophile, past me saying “This guy is creepy, I’m blocking him.”
THAT should be the response to any uncomfortable behavior, and it needs to be taught to children in schools. Is somebody saying things you don’t like? Block them, or close the window.
Every single possible method of communication we have also has a way of blocking unwanted content. You need to be teaching your kids exactly how to avoid the things they don’t want to see, rather than make the rest of the world babysit them because the parents are too damn lazy to sit at a computer with their kids and find out what they’re doing.
Habbo Hotel, Ever dived deeper into Facebook which is another haunt for paedophiles, I recently myself had to contact the cyber child protection team to have one removed successfully but later to find they are back using anonymous name, I hear you say why did I not go to my local police who are also on my facebook, because they are in institutional denial with matters of such that could cause myself further intimidation of charges untrue and unjust.
Why not attack IMVU? That place is 100 times worse than Habbo, but it’s not under threat of being shut down. This game isn’t Club Penguin, it’s designed for kids above the age of 13, and it’s assumed they have some sort of ability to not be idiots. If you add a player called dirtyboy, what the hell do you expect is going to happen? There’s a simple solution though, don’t add the player and leave the room O:! It is not the world’s job to helicopter over children to make sure they’re not doing something stupid, you teach them how to fend for themselves then push them out of the nest. You can’t learn about danger without encountering the danger. When you’re little your parents teach you not to touch hot plates, because they’ll burn you. How many of you still went to touch it, just to see? I bet a lot of you.
As I saw on twitter “When a pedo approaches a child in a park, you don’t blame the park.”
In response to you not looking for it, me and 99% of othe habbo users have never stumbled across such actvity like you claimed and theres a good reason for that we didn’t enter rooms called naughty nightclub and didn’t converse with peope called dirtyboy. If we were approached by someone saying *touches boobs* we would laugh atthem in real life due to how pathetic is and eiher click ignore them or go away. Not what your reporter was doing assuming that people don’t have free will as if you were completely helpless to do something in the situation when in actual fact their are several options. Also you pretended to be 11 when the site clearly says you need to be 13 years and over all of whom I would assume can adequately handle these situations. If an 11 yr old is going on a site that they are not allowed on, then that is fully in the hands of their parents supervision.
Again I find it interesting that of the 250 million users that are now silenced due to the report you fail to mention anything about the millions of those who are bully victims, bedriden patient, anxious lonely people who have lost their only friends. Gonna be a news report on that? Or does
I will also take this time to say thankyou for finally allowing my comment to be published even if it was hours after everyone elses comments we’re published, and took me a few emails of censorship accusations, but hey at least it’s there.
I do find it interesting how you left a note underneath about you not looking for this dirty chat, even though all signs point towards that being the case. However you left my comment about disconnecting disabled, bullied and plain lonely people from their only friends in the world well alone, well that’s a very convenient choice by you isn’t it, got to maintain that moral high ground, good for reputation and therefore ratings.
This was clearly something blown well out of proportion, there is pedo activity on every site on the net it’s an internet thing, and habbo is to be honest one of the best out there when it comes to safety from these people.
To attack one single company spending 20 minutes on national TV bad mouthing it as if you cant turn without seeing a pedo is just not on, you’ve already cost the company millions of dollars, and why?
Because pedopilia stories will lead to parental fear and that to ratings. TV channel not a charity.
Out of all this, I’m more suprised that Habbo Hotel is being singled out from the much wider range of sites that contain more what could be put as “disturbing” content.
Jon, thou you have a fair argument, you are looking at the lower end of what the internet has to offer to the childen of this day and age.
Cyber pedophillia? Jon, you have only scraped the surface of what the internet has to offer, how about you acually take a deeped look into what children have the abilty to view these days, or should I more say, should the whole community of parents look into this.
Gore, disturbing sexual fetishs, war crimes, excutions and an almost an unlimited number of other childhood destroying videos and pictures are there for the innocent eyes of a child to view, and don’t you dare doubt their ablity to find them.
In short, please don’t pin this on Habbo and look a little deeper thank you.
I note the following appear to be facts:
a) At no stage did Channel 4 establish the age of the people who sent the obscene messages to their researchers.
b) Yet the female researcher in the segment broadcast used the word “men” to describe the senders.
c) Channel 4 reporters have repeatedly linked-in references to adult pædophilic abuse into this story. E.g. that pædophiles have existed on Habbo in the broadcasted story; that Jon Snow suffered a pædophilic attack, in this blog on it.
Because of the above, it would be quite understandable that an observer would conclude this story is about Habbo being full of predatory pædophiles. However, that is not borne out by the facts uncovered, only by the suggestion made by C4.
It’s an interesting story, and I don’t personally know what number of Habbo users are pædophiles (but I suspect it’s probably low compared to the number of lewd young male teens there). However, I do have some concerns about the degree of care exercised by C4 News in presenting the facts of this story to the viewer. I think some lesson could be learned.
Ive played Habbo for a long time and I know the problems of having “those” people there.
But you and your colleagues are doing wrong to Habbo.
When a nine-year-old girl is sitting alone in the park pedofiles are watching this girl more intensively then if it plays with its friend football.
Same in Habbo:
The avatars of newer and/or younger players differ in the avatars of experienced players.
And if the player sits in these “love rooms”, where the pedofiles most often are, it gets in contact with them.
So, the “real” pedofile says: “Hey, i’ve some cookies in my car, come with me, i’ll give them to you.”
No police would stop him cause they can’t be next to every little girl. The same with the moderation in Habbo. But if the girl goes to the police and says “Hey, he wanted do be sexual with me” the pedofile can be stopped.
Same in Habbo.
Childen have to tell their parents what’s going on.
And the parents have to show interest. My mother once tried Habbo cause I played it and I knew it was okay to talk to her about it.
I think if parents don’t start to talk with their children about the internet the children will always get in trouble there.
Even if Habbo changes rules 100 times.
Why do you say that the investors have taken their multi million pound investments with them? The money was invested and spent ages ago.
Possibly the cut backs in moderation and elsewhere in recent times were partly due to the pressure from investors wanting a return.
Balderton Capital gave back their shareholding at nil value. I haven’t seen accurate reporting of 3i but Sulake has got at least 13% of its shares back for no cash, having already spent the investment. It would be good to know more details about the 3i exit, but they may have been looking for an excuse, they are no longer a VC.
It is good that you investigated Habbo (though it would be good if you didn’t just focus on them) but the investigative journalism skills in this exercise have much to be desired.
You should have made clear who one of the two experts was (ex Habbo staff now working at at a company in the same area where the ages have a bit of crossover). Your other expert, the government one you said hadn’t been on Habbo certainly had. Over many years.
I’m certainly not saying they have ulterior motives but it would be good to have some objective and factual reporting.
I’ve been playing Habbo for 5 years. Take it from me – the report was ridiculously biased. The woman conducting the experiment was incredibly ignorant.
What she doesn’t mention in her findings is that probably 1% of the entire Hotel is club/chat/e-relationship related. It’s such an easy thing to avoid. For us regulars, it’s common to log in and see CHAT/CLUB/SEXY SINGLES etc. etc., all that rubbish at the top rated and most viewed, but it’s SO EASY to avoid. Just don’t go in those rooms, and you won’t find the experiences the woman had such as awkward experiences with overzealous 13 year old’s.
Putting it into perspective, that’s like saying nobody should drive cars because a certain number of people are killed by cars each year.
Open to comments are discussion.
I know very litle about Habbos, but I remember visiting chat rooms out of curiosity 10 or more years ago and found that they were a playground for the hysterical , deranged and sexually perverted. I am sure there are decent folks there as well , but I was too scared to pursue these places after a couple of characters threatened my naive patter.
You aren’t saving anyone with this article. All you’re doing is pissing off teenagers like me. We go on habbo to RELAX AND EXPRESS OUR FEELINGS. Now you’ve ruined it and brought silence to habbo. Children everywhere are revolting because of you, they were perfectly safe, and now Children everywhere DESPISE YOU. A bitter hate, a resentment of such unimaginable power, thats what we, including me, feel towards you. You have no right to make such assumptions of a whole website. You. Must. Be. Destroyed.
You know nothing, Jon Snow.
Children are more resilient than you think;
If Their parents should have had more control ansd made their kids do their homework and nothing but academic and constrcutiove with their time then they woukldn’t be vulnerable to such websites ;
and end up self actualising and feel fortunate to be employed at all being paid natioanl minumum wages.
Why don’t you take a look at habbo and see all the kids holding up a 4 sign and then a skull sign? Yeah,kids hate you. Nice going, idiot.
Oh so you say habbo has a lot of pedophiles huh? Well does that mean you should do a whole report on it? NO. There are pedophiles EVERYWHERE on the internet, does that mean we should mute twitter,facebook, Google+,imdb,reddit,and 9GAG? NO. Your report is simply absurd.
If habbo gets taken out because of you, I will show NO MERCY.
In reply to the Producer’s comments on Alex Smith’s comments followed by my comments.
To Producer:
The ‘find new friends’ button will deliver you to rooms with most users. Of cours immature children will go to rooms with sexual meanings or something that says ‘find a date’ however its up to those mature people to report that content to help the Moderators out with their automated monitoring.
Also, not to come accross as rude but you must have provoked the situation. You can’t have been innocent in all this, not to mention you broke the games T&C when you registered (depending on what age you claimed on registration) as the T&C state ‘you must be of 13 years of age or older’.
** MY NEXT COMMENT WILL BE REGARDING THE ARTICLE **
Your report seemed to focus solely on the negative things about habbo and you forgot to mention the positive things such as that Teens turn to this game to help gain wisdom, fight depression, gain knowledge, life skills, designing skills (in designing rooms) and loads more. I personally have learnt loads from Habbo and I am thankful for the service. We have had and sometimes still have organisaitons such as FRANK that come into the Hotel and get along side us and have a chat – Facebook doesn’t have this.
The issues specified in your report are not just ones Sulake should action on. Facebook has tons of Children Molesters or Peadophiles on it, who pretend to be their friends and befriend this person then walla, they have their prey.
So…
Thankyou Channel 4 for reporting on this – Sulake have made and are making drastic improvements.
Thankyou Cahnnel 4 for bringing this to light so OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKING SERVCIES CAN IMPROVE AS WEL.
However…
We, the Habbo Community hate you Channel 4, because you did not show both sides of the story… it was one sided and biased.
Thankyou,
Annonymous Habbo User
How can casino and gambling be legal on Habbo ?
http://habbo.wikia.com/wiki/Casino
Please explain!
How can you continue this story as it is obviously a one-side bias opinion? Habbo hotel is one of the many most popular gaming sites teens and kids go to in order to have fun. Habbo Hotel doesn’t interest you in the reason you gave, Channel 4 is just interested in the money the story can bring. Why should Habbo be the blame to the whole internet? Is it because they are the “biggest” of it’s kind? As I said, you are just making this a big story because of the money it might bring. Look at the brighter 99% of Habbo and then talk about Habbo. The fact that kids are seeping so low in life (in my opinion) is the parent’s faults for not stopping this and moderating their own kids behaver. The News always seems to take the most lamest News stories and make a big deal out of it. If you went to the Habbo Hotel Welcome lounge you can see people holding up candles in hope Habbo gets put back to the normal way it was. Not as good for you Channel News 4, you guys get a #4 held up on signs and a skull right after it. Nice job on becoming hated in the Habbo community. The internet is full of Pedo bears so go report the whole internet and see where that gets you.
Watch Channel 4 News tonight for a discussion with Habbo users about their experiences of the site – good and bad
Jon Snow, nice background story you gave,but when you put it in a story to go against Habbo, it is not going to stop anymore of those encounters for young kids.Habbo Hotel is way more positive than you make it seem.
To me it just seems like a phony News coverage. At the end of the 2nd video the girl is talking about how she affected herself because of what people were doing to her on a gaming site(Habbo). How bad can it get where you dont use common sense as a parent and not do anything about their child? I dont think Habbo is the problem here. I think that if parents would do something about their kids threatening their lives over something stupid such as that, then it would not come to that… Your investigation into Habbo was really saddening… not the findings,but the search for the bad in Habbo. How about you go somewhere else? basically it looked like you only visited the 18+ rooms. As it is a game, not only kids would play it. If you would look at the bigger picture and see that shutting down Habbo is not the answer. I dont know the answer to stop all pedo bears but maybe if you would not be so one sided and ignorant maybe you can find it yourself. Love to hate you C4,bye.