Chat Roulette: Proof that people suck

I don’t visit Chat Roulette. Let’s just get that out of the way right now. I don’t go there. The mere thought terrifies me. It shouldn’t — after all, I’m a grown man. But there are some things I’d just rather not see.

Chat Roulette is a pretty brilliant idea, actually. It’s one of those ideas that could only have been dreamed up by an idealistic teenager, who just wondered what it would be like if you could just hit a button and video chat with a random stranger anywhere in the world. Pretty awesome, right?

Wrong.

Like way too many other things online, creeps are immediately drawn in. And just to be clear, Internet perverts will always find a way to ruin any good idea. Always.

In the Chat Roulette I envision, a schoolteacher could put the service up on the projector in front of the class, hit a button and be connected to someone in Germany or France. The kids could ask questions about the chatter’s traditions or the food. They could actually learn something. It would be like when I was a youngster and we had penpals in other countries, only Chat Roulette would allow users to speak in real-time. I could even see classrooms using this daily — like a daily trip around the world. And even average Joes could go online and chat with random strangers, either for fun or to learn. It my vision, Chat Roulette could play a huge part in drawing the world closer together, breaking down borders and fostering understanding between people.

Instead, we get perverts.

C-NET’s Natali Del Conte, in a report for CBS, showed it doesn’t take but a couple of mouse clicks before a Chat Roulette visitor is exposed to nudity or propositioned for sex. And, as such, it’s not a safe playground.

I don’t know what the 17-year-old Russian lad who invented Chat Roulette had in mind when he launched the site a few short months ago. According the rules, there’s no pornography, nudity, illegal or immoral behavior allowed.  But as Jon Stewart points out, this is the Internet.

Point is, the Internet’s never seen a good idea it couldn’t screw up. And Chat Roulette was ruined before it ever got off the ground. My advice to the Chat Roulette developers? Figure out a content filter that allows safe surfing, and you’ll find your user numbers grow. Legitimize your site before it gets any more out of hand than it already is, and perhaps create an education-only section, where school kids can interact with each other in the classroom.

Right now, all you’ve got is a website that proves people suck.