Stickam, a very disturbing site.
July 14th 2007 by user2 in Child Safety & Protection, Child Abuse
Article by Jace, Internet Safety Advisor
Stickam.com is not your average social networking website. Stickam takes the social networking genre up a notch, and a big one!! It is estimated that 600,000 registered users, ages 14 and older, participate in video chats. Live.
Registration is simple and free. Once registered, you can watch other members, you can listen to them, live, on-the-spot. You can also wander into chat rooms, and watch and hear all the other people who happen to be in the chat room, live.
I logged on late on a weekend evening. And I watched.
I saw young girls, who appeared to be in their bedrooms, chatting away. Their profiles stated they were 14 or 15 years old, although there was no way to tell. I could literally see what they were typing, could hear what they were saying and listening to, and could watch them. LIVE. And what was even more disturbing, was that some were not “private” rooms. Sometimes, there were many others in the same “room”, watching as I was. Just like me. I kept wondering, where were these young girls parents? And even creepier, who were all the people “watching” them? A true voyeur’s playground. What I saw, literally made the hair stand up on my neck!
Stickam has a disclaimer, that subscribers agree not to display any indecent, illegal, obscene material. Most of the chats rooms I visited were very adult “oriented”. There is also an age requirement of 14 or above and that you warrant the information you provide upon registering is indeed truthful and accurate.
It has recently been alleged by former Stickam Vice President, Alex Becker, the company has close ties to a large online pornography business. Becker also alleges that Stickam shares office space, employees and computer systems with the pornographic Web sites.
Becker left Stickam after a short stay. He also alleges that he saw employees delete thousands of customer service and abuse complaints email messages sent to the company without reading or responding to them.
Scott Flacks, from Stickam, denied that the site was negligent about protecting its users and said that Becker had plans to create a similar site that would compete with Stickam and was being “retaliatory”. He also said AVC operated independently of the pornography sites.
If you are a parent and especially if you own a webcam, please visit Stickam. Let me know what you find!
Related article - Stickam: Possible Connection To Online Porn?
Stumble it!
July 14th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Jace I’d rather stick it to stickam and not visit to check it out. Your word that it is dangerous is good enough for me. Any hint of it being associated with pornography is ground enough to run away from it.
The quote, “He also said AVC operated independently of the pornography sites” doesn’t make it clear that Stickam and Porn operators are not sharing computer systems, databases, etc.
This is a site I will boycott, even to check it out to back my lovely Jace up.
Cheers to Becker, but more parent flack for Flacks.
July 17th, 2007 at 10:56 am
this is disgusting but unfortunately is happening in more places than just this site. This site has more of an easier access to view someones camera etc. There are plenty of sites where children can access web chat and porn web chat at that.
All’s you need to do on these sites is verify that you are the age of 18 and insert a birthdate to “proof” it. How many intelligent children out there can falsafy a birthdate so they can gain access. Its just too darn easy.
There needs to be more preventative actions on allowing this rubbish on the internet and being easy to get at my peers.
I for one will not be going to this site to check it out. Thanks for the heads up though.
July 18th, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Megan and Lisa,
Yes, it is extremely disturbing. What people chose to do when they are 25 or 20 is one thing, but it sickens me when I see “reportedly” 14 year old girls, in their bedrooms, carrying on video chats with perfect strangers. Some of the photo’s that were posted, appeared to be men in their 30’s or 40’s.
To be fair, I was there as well.
If parents knew about these types of sites, perhaps we wouldn’t have so many concerns.
Thank you both for your comments!!