Save the Children

I think this is a good move from Yahoo. I'm not sure what purpose general chat rooms serve these days other than to provide an easy outlet for twisted predators to go trolling for kids. Practically every topic you can think of has their own message forums, so I don't see any great loss if they just disappeared. I don't think you could legislate the "teen chat" message boards away, but it certainly seems possible that with enough pressure, the companies would fold.

I'm wrong about things like this as often as I'm right, but I think Democrats could take this issue and run with it. It would be a stand against sexual assault of course, but more than that, it would allow the Dems to capture a little of the "we're helping to protect your children" meme back from the GOP. The right has been moaning for years about Hollywood and how its corrupting influence runs rampant in our society. It's a stupid complaint of course, but as much as we hate to admit it, it really does connect with the moms and dads who fear they are not quite in control of the things their kids see. We can say "Well, turn it off" all we want (and we'd be right), but we all know that the TVs in the kitchen, in the den, and in little Johnny's bedroom are staying on. So by challenging the big online media companies to shut down their general purpose chat rooms, we could pick up the standard for "protecting families," we force the GOP to choose between big media conglomerates and "the children," and we begin the process of reconnecting with many married women who vote Republican.