By Jenny Suo
A popular online game aimed at young people has shut its chat capabilities after claims the site has been infiltrated by paedophiles.
‘Habbo Hotel’ is an online community used by more than 250 million people worldwide including New Zealanders.
Its chief executive has muted all conversations while he investigates reports of pornographic chat.
Now its users have found another way of making their voices heard with a protest in pixels.
Hundreds of avatars or ‘habbos’ holding torches are angry their online community has been gagged.
But it's a necessary precaution after a producer from Britain’s Channel Four posed as an 11-year-old and revealed just how easy it is for a young person to be sexually violated on Habbo Hotel.
“People were having sex with me without my permission or doing things to me without my permission,” producer Rachel Seifert says.
“In public, men would come up to me and say that they were doing all these things to me and my body without my asking.”
Ms Seifert was also asked to make direct contact
“‘Do you have a webcam, are you on MSN, are you on Skype?' I was told to get fully naked, would I sent photos over email.”
She played the game 50 times with the same experience, perhaps meeting men like Matthew Leonard.
He pretended to be a teenager on Habbo Hotel and befriended a young girl, but he was in fact in his 20s.
“He asked her to show herself naked via webcam, she did, he captured images which he later used to make her commit further sexual acts,” Essex police detective constable Karen Berry says.
Following Leonard's arrest, police traced more than 80 victims. The youngest was only 10 years old.
The site is made by Finnish company Sulake. Its chief executive Paul la Fontaine says he's been working hard to improve user safety.
But while he's asked his users to stay loyal, some big names have already checked out.
Two of Sulake's biggest investors have withdrawn and chain stores Game, WH Smith and Tesco have stopped selling Habbo gift cards used to buy furniture on the site.
The website does have moderators, but one safety expert says the system is failing.
“It was a giant room of people, kids, I don’t know how old, having cyber sex,” chief community and safety officer Rebecca Newton says.
“Nobody's minding the children. Nobody's minding the shop.”
And now it seems this virtual world has a very real problem.
3 News