Habbo investor pulls out after 'explicit' sex allegations
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18415763
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One of the biggest investors in popular children's online game Habbo has pulled out after concerns were raised about "explicitly sexual interactions".
Venture capital firm Balderton told the BBC it had decided to drop its stake in Habbo's owner, Sulake, last week.
A Channel 4 inquiry uncovered "very sexual, perverse, pornographic violent" chats taking place in the game.
Sulake said it was aware of the claims and was taking steps to protect children.
With some 10 million unique users per month, Habbo is one of the world's largest online communities for teenagers.
It is not the first time Habbo has been linked to inappropriate sexual allegations.
Last year paedophile Matthew Leonard, 21, of Billericay, Essex, was sentenced to seven years imprisonment after he admitted grooming young girls he had met in Habbo.
The game is set in a virtual hotel and, using avatars, players move from room to room, chat to other users and furnish their rooms using credits.
Posing as a young girl, a Channel 4 News producer said she had witnessed "very sexual, perverse, violent, pornographic" chats.
Rachel Seifert spent two months on Habbo and said after she took part in online chats, she had quickly found herself in the middle of conversations of extremely explicit sexual nature.
"Within two minutes I was being asked individually 'do you have a webcam?', 'can we chat on MSN, on Skype?'" she said.
"I was also within a couple of minutes asked to strip, fully naked, and asked what would I do on a webcam."
Ms Seifert said she had played the game 50 times, and every time had had similar experiences.
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http://www.channel4.com/news/stripte...at-habbo-hotel
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My first venture into the virtual online world of children started quite innocently. I expected bright colours, tinkly music, cartoon characters and fluffy animals. And when I first logged into the site of Habbo Hotel, that is pretty much what I got.
I created my cartoon child-like avatar as a little girl with shorts and T-shirt and a flower in her hair, and she wandered across brightly coloured rooms with teddy bears, flashing neon lights, pink ponies and fluttering butterflies.
But within minutes, lines of chat on speech bubbles rolled over the screen filled with pornographic chat. At first I couldn't quite believe my eyes, but it was there in black and white.
Read Channel 4 News' investigation into the alarming world of Habbo Hotel
These small avatars were literally having what I can only describe as cyber-sex. The juxtaposition of these explicitly sexual conversations against the backdrop of colourful balloons, talking rabbits and luminous rainbows was just shocking.
From that moment I was immersed into a whole new world of "cybering" (cyber sex). I had little cartoon boys coming up to me and saying they were feeling my boobs, following me to my bedroom and having sex with me, all without my permission or encouragement. At first it left me feeling slightly dirty and then pretty quickly, outraged.
This soon developed into these characters asking whether I would get naked on a webcam, or simply watch them masturbate. The requests were persistent and often forceful, making me feel pressured under the barrage.
And many of these requests came despite posing as an 11-year-old.
And this seemed to be the norm for the site. In fact, it felt to me that this was what people went there for.
The busiest rooms were named "sexy stripclub", "naughty nightclub", and so forth. Rooms which were full of rows of beds with cartoon children laying down ready for people to come and have sex with them, rooms which had "kissing booths" which shook while they were being used for cyber sex.
This was all graphically described in moving speech bubbles above.
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I'd never heard of Habbo, but, since the allegations are obviously true, it should be shut down immedately and further investigation initiated !
:eek:
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