This is just plain WRONG! Teen Video-Chat Site Tied to Large Online Porn Business!
 

Having a daughter that just started college and thankfully made it through middle school and high school without any internet incidences I would highly recommend any of you with kids or those that have friends with kids in the 14-17 year old range read this and be aware of this site.

Stickam

SCARY STUFF :mad:

Stickam, a website that allows registered users aged 14 and older to participate in unfiltered live-video chats, has percolated concern from child-safety experts and parents alike due to Stickam's connections to a large online pornography business.

Advanced Video Communications, or AVC, the owner of Stickam is supervised and owned by Wataru Takahashi, a Japanese entrepreneur who owns and operates DTI Services, an immense network of websites offering live sex shows via webcam.

Stickam, which claims to be a free site, does not offer advertising and does not appear to have earned any recurring revenue during its two-year existence, although the company has encouraged media companies to use its site for promotions.

Several thousand teenage members continue to log onto Stickam in order to broadcast their personal lives. Members often transmit improvised talk shows and flirt with other members in video-chat rooms where females constantly encounter bold requests for them to strip or perform lewd acts. What's more, anyone can tune in to a user's video feed, unless the user restricts it to friends only. Members are required to be 14 years old or older to join, but the site has no programs in place to verify ages.

In spite of all this, Stickam has gained attention from a few big-name partners, such as Warner Bros. Records, Lionsgate, and the Los Angeles Film Festival ? all of which have used Stickam for promotional resources in the past. However, none of the partners seems to know Stickam's exact background.

In April 2007, Takahashi discussed his companies' assets through translators, assets that include approximately 49 pornography sites, a pornographic film production company, nine restaurants in Japan, and private planes.

Donna Rice Hughes, president of Enough Is Enough, an Internet safety organization, said, "Considering Stickam's ties to pornography, children and their parents should exercise caution when using the site. This is just another adult operator looking for a back door to the youth market. For youth without parental understanding and controls in place, this can be dangerous."

Who thinks that a site like this should be shut down until they are fully investigated as a site that potentially promotes illegal activities?

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Hard to say, is there any evidence of wrongdoing? I mean, if there is any evidence they are trying to sell/recruit from it, then yeah. If not, then obviously not.

oh dear.

i must make sure to keep nick off of there.

They dont allow nudity or anything on there. Ive chatted on there before. I dont really see what difference it makes if the guy owns some porn interests.

Btw got some swaggage this week gracious. :winkwink:

If there is nothing linking the two sites besides them having the same owner then I don't see the problem. I'm surprised an adult webmaster would feel this way. You don't have any mainstream sites?

Are you serious, Jim? The connection is business-wise.

The site is actually monitored much closer than myspace. Stickam is a great non-adult site. (I use them to broadcast HugNation)

OMG you can rent a porn movie on your local cable provider that also offers the Disney channel...will somebody please think about the children?!!!!
http://www.4to40.com/images/jokes/smoking_kid.jpg

I had a look at a few of the 'live' profiles of younger people and most of them say not to ask them to show things they shouldn't... but those sorts of requests are going to happen on just about any site where people freely interact in real time.

The internet is not a babysitter, if you're concerned about your children then don't let them use the net by themselves.

No I don't have any mainstream sites and my main concern is my children, plain and simple. If you read the article in full you will see the correlation between his mainstream venture and his adult ventures.

Yes Hal I have to say that I am serious about this if not only from the standpoint of knowing that there is no way that every chat session can be monitored, whether or not there are predators there everyday trying to lure underage teens and the fact that as I said before there is too much of a correlation between the mainstream business model and his adult business.

Anyone that has or has had children in the 14 to 17 year old range, especially daughters, will have a better understanding of where I am coming from. It's hard enough to try to monitor children's online activities as it is once they reach this age and I just don't like the fact that there is yet another avenue available for potential predators.

I guess this article just hit a nerve with me.
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The only correlation I see is that one guy owns multiple assetts spanning different industries. Would you refuse to take your family to the local McDonalds if you knew he owned it?

Suggesting that a mainstream site is tainted purely because it is owned by someone that also runs porn sites is frankly ridiculous. For all you know he may not even have anything to do with the day to day running of either side of the web biz.

Point taken rowan. You and I see things differently and I respectfully agree that we disagree. :thumbsup

The point of this thread was to make anyone that was interested aware of the site in question. Then if they share the same concerns that I do they can ad it to their list of sites that they may want to monitor their children's usage on.

I have also reviewed some of the profiles on the site and I will tell you that there are plenty of 25+ year old males on there that I would NOT like to have chatting with my 14 year old daughter.

If I am wrong in my views then I choose to err on the side of caution.
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that's a good point. The only thing i see here is paranoia

This user doesn't look 14

http://static.stickam.com/media/imag...58111cf0be.jpg

Sorry I forgot to put the link to the story which I saw at AVN Online.

http://avnonline.com/index_cache.php...tent_ID=291870

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Doesn't look I agree but as long as they keep the sites separated there is no wrongdoing

Oh, I think you have TONS of reason to be concerned about your daughter using ANY video chat site...whether owned by the Pope or Pimpdog. But the politics, sex lives, or other businesses of the owners is irrelevant, IMHO.

It doesn't really matter that the owner also owns adult and food businesses, as long as they keep their adult holdings separate from their non-adult holdings.

However, Stickam DEFINITELY is bad news. It mixes teens and cams - a bad idea at any time.

The ED definition:

So now it's immoral for adult companies to also run mainstream businesses?

LOL That doesn't make any sense. The site is still the same regardless of how ownership is set up.

You are obviously a far right wing conservative when it comes to internet issues and "protecting kids online", so it's odd that you would work in porn.

This isn't five year olds that we are talking about here. You can not take preventative measures that will actually work when some of the users are 15, 16 or 17. At that age it comes down to how they were raised since they have the ability to circumvent pretty much any obstacle the online services put in their way.

The one and only thing that is sure to work is to take the drastic preventative measure in shutting these type of services down. That's just not going to happen. Online video chat is going to be huge and a wonderful technology for society to use. PARENTS will have to deal with that in a way other than calling for the suppression of technology.

Why did you omit these parts of the article?

Becker has alleged that not only does Stickam share office space with the adult websites, but also employees and computer systems.

[...]

"The workers at Mr. Takahashi's companies only know how to conduct an adult web site," Becker said. "They don't get it or care that there are predators on the Internet."

If true then this changes my opinion...

Hmm..

Yahoo has webcam chat with loads of teens.. and also a search engine that can result in links to thousands of porn sites...

Maybe Yahoo doesn't own the sites, but their search site provides a means to link to them..

I've never head anyone freek over that...

This is hilarious. Big daddy thinks his daughter walks around with a halo around her head. LMFAO... Clearly your daughter does a good job pretending she a well behaved girl when her daddy watches, but for the rest of the day... That is how all major "internet incidents" started. Naive daddy of a dreamer tribe was 100% sure his daughter was a saint.

I'm a far right wing conservative? :eek7 Now that's something I've actually never heard before.

Maybe you misunderstood my post. I said that it doesn't matter what other companies the site owner might have (like a company selling both children's toys and adult toys), as long as they don't mix them (eg, selling the adult toys in the children's toystore).

Completely unrelated:

Stickam is a bad thing, though. Teens should not be encouraged in having video chats with strangers, simply because video chat with strangers generally speaking is about a single thing. If you really don't understand, spend some hours on 4chan and 7chan, and you'll see (might be forced to erase your hard drive afterwards, though).

Yes, parents will have to deal with this. And the only reasonable way for them to deal with this is to make sure their children aren't using Stickam. Sites like Stickam could decide to target a somewhat older audience, though.

This simple equation should make it clear why Stickam and teens don't mix well:
social networking = interaction with lots of strangers
webcams = being watched
social networking + webcams = being watched by lots of strangers

lol thats a rather odd statement ..

we should presume them guilty of "something" and shut them down until we investigate to see if its true or not. ?

i dunno should we shutdown your sites or playboy or mcdonalds or ebay . incase it promotes illegal activity ?

i think before you shutoff anyone , you would first want to find something they are doing to deserve being shutdown . ( i.e. a law they broke ) , if theres is no law they are breaking but the "community" doesn't approve , perhaps a new law should be written.

but to answer your questions simply. No they should not shutdown sites based on nothing.. they should always use facts..

google sells and buys porn ads yet their search engine lets any age person search .. should we shut them down incase they are breaking some law ?

what an idiotic statement..

i dont know any workers who "ONLY" know how to conduct an adult website

nor do i believe he polled the workers with the question " do you care there are predators on the internet" and every single one of them answered "no" or "whats a predator"

Why?

It's perfectly possible for people to code/design/write for both adult and mainstream sites, as long as they remember the naked chicks go on the adult sites.

Is it just me or do all the guys on that site look like faggots?