In perhaps one of the biggest odd moves ever Microsoft has decided to close its MSN chat rooms to both derision from some and congratulations from others [news.bbc.co.uk].
One of the supposed reasons for this is to prevent children getting groomed for sex by paedos. Now, this strikes me as something of an overreaction to the whole peado thing, being as there are millions and millions of chat room users and about 2 cases a year or something or chatroom peado stuff. Admittedly yes 2 is too many, but what the hell do you gain by removing some semi-moderated forums and just moving all the chat onto IRC or MSN messenger where there is no moderation at all? If child safety really is a reason and not just a PR stunt, then it’s a poor one, and smacks of knee-jerk reaction to tabloid journal nonsense.
