Law logs on to chat rooms

The head of the MXit social networking site has defended his site amid the furore concerning "slut" lists - but The Sunday Independent has learnt that MXit and other such services will be regulated under amendments to be passed to the Film and Publications Act.

Iyavar Chetty, the acting head of the Film and Publications Board, said, once the amendments were passed into law, all social networking sites would be required to monitor their services closely to ensure they were not dealing with any kind of behaviour in chat rooms that would lead to the abuse of children.

"If there is any evidence that the sites are not complying with the legal obligations, prosecution will follow," he said.

Chetty conceded that policing such sites, popular among teenagers, on a 24-hour basis was impossible. Instead, there would be a reliance on a "sense of social responsibility" on the part of users and the people who run the sites.

"They have not demonstrated that they are policing it to conclude that there is no risk to vulnerable children. Because [of this] the government has been compelled to take limited measures," he said.

Chetty was adamant these measures would not see the government or any authorities prying into the privacy of individuals. But, he said, it would be expected of operators of sites to have monitors who would be able to identify signs of potential abusive behaviour and to take steps to block people from entering sites.

Herman Heunis, MXit's chief executive officer, this week defended the five-year-old free instant messaging service saying there were sufficient security measures in place.

MXit has about 9-million members in 120 countries, and the number is growing, with more than 10 000 South Africans registering as new users on the site daily. Five percent of subscribers use the chat room facility. About 250-million messages are sent a day.

Heunis said it was because of security measures and monitors that the service provider was able to act almost immediately to stop the defamatory "slut" and "bastard" lists that had circulated in person-to-person communications among users in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape.

He believed the latest "list" debacle had been blown out of proportion. While he did not know the real number of defamatory lists circulated, indications were that they numbered more than 270.

"We investigated every complaint and communicated with the complainants. Over 30 were received initially and we deleted every single list off the network," he said.

Reintroducing payment for the forwarding of messages as one of the measures to halt the spread of the lists had seen a 98 percent drop in forwarded messages. "It stopped that chain letter effect," said Heunis. "What do people expect us to do? Must we monitor every message that goes out? That is illegal. People have a right to privacy."

But he admitted that, because the internet was continually developing, criminals would find a way to abuse the system. "People should realise that … if you insult someone on the internet you can be sued."

The company's website also contained information and tips for parents, safety tips for children and a list of the 10 most important security measures to remember.

Heunis said he was saddened by what he believed was a witch-hunt against a service that was aimed at getting people to communicate.

He was especially upset by allegations that MXit's management had known for years that the service was being abused by the youth and criminals. In the past year, a number of teenage girls had gone missing after meeting people via MXit.

Heunis emphasised that these, and other problems that had arisen, originated from the public chat rooms, and only in instances where the user had not abided by the rules.

"Revealing personal information in any public chat room is extremely irresponsible as the possibility of criminal elements being present is a reality. It becomes dangerous when people who meet in public chat rooms agree to meet in person and various newspaper reports all over the world have borne witness to this.

"The brutal reality is that criminal elements worldwide have been on the internet for years and, unfortunately, MXit is not spared this evil."

He said the latest scandal did not involve the chat rooms, but the facility that enabled users to send attachments, such as pictures or messages written and saved in MXit.

But Chetty questioned the effectiveness of MXit's security measures. "There have been reports of abuse of the MXit site for over a year. Parents have been complaining. If MXit was only alerted to problems because of what happened in recent weeks, then there is no reason to believe that they have adequate measures in place," he said.

While he and Jody Kollapen of the Human Rights Commission believed that social networking and instant messaging services were important communication tools with a lot of potential for education and entertainment, they also believed those who ran them should do more to ensure they were not abused.

"In providing a service that has got the potential to be abused and damage peoples' lives there must be a parallel programme to address such [matters]," said Chetty.

Kollapen said he would like to see site owners focusing on educating parents on how to monitor what their children were doing on the internet.


This article was originally published on page 3 of Sunday Independent on August 10, 2008