Xbox Live user faces charges News
Xbox Xbox 360 News by Games Industry.biz
Police in California have accused a 26-year-old man of using the Xbox Live service to make contact with a teenager and arrange a meeting during which the boy was molested.
It's alleged that Ronnie Watts, of Placerville, began exchanging emails and chatting with the 14-year-old over Xbox Live several months ago. He is also said to have sent the boy lewd videos of himself.
Police say that in November boy gave Watts his home address and phone number and they met in a Santa Rosa park, where the molestation allegedly took place.
The boy later told his mother about the alleged incident and Watts was arrested on December 15. Police seized his Xbox, laptop and a collection of cameras.
Watts has been charged with a number of offences including using the Internet to solicit a minor and has yet to enter a plea. He is currently free on bail.
As the issue of protecting children in the online environment becomes of growing concern to parents, videogames companies are taking steps to deal with the problem. For example, the Xbox 360's parental controls can be used to manage players' online activity, such as voice chat.
Nintendo took a different tack when launching Wi-Fi Connection, the new service that allows DS owners to play online. Players must swap their "Friend Code" - a series of digits unique to their DS unit - offline before they can play together over the Internet, and there is no way of communicating directly with others.
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Comments: 1-29 of 29 in total
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mr_steve100
06/01/06 @ 12:58
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Yeah, Nintendo don't really want their name in the papers within headlines like "Nintendo Allows Handheld Molestation" or some such tabloid crap.
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Universal Hamster
06/01/06 @ 13:14
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I accidentlly molested myself once, but it was all a misunderstanding.
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the main reason ninty would have done it is to avoid smack tard talking idiots swearing at under 10 year olds playing mario kart etc.
although the old men organising park buggerings is also covered by this. @scientist who knows, the kid may have let him oragnise the meet but have his mates video the meet on their camera phones and blackmail the pervert. we'll never know all thats ever reported is "your kids arnt safe on the net!!!! omg!!!" to scare parents. |
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jumpdeveraux
06/01/06 @ 14:06
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Good job MS didn't hire Nintendos marketing team who did the 35 million Euro "Touch Me" campaign...
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TurdBreaker
06/01/06 @ 14:14
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So....
This *isn't* a feature of the Xbox 360? /cancelling his pre-order |
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PearOfAnguish
06/01/06 @ 16:10
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Stupid child. If he was dumb enough to go meet some internet freak then he deserved to be rogered within an inch of his life. Parents probably flipped a lid when they discovered their kid was gay.
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Don't parents teach their kids about not talking to strangers, and certainly not meeting them from an internet contact. Hell why are they letting their kid use the internet unattended in the first place, its not like they haven't seen a million scare stories about the "evil" internet.
But really don't blame xbox and internet or any other communication device, its not thier fault. The kiddy fiddlers were around long before the internet was invented, and will use what ever method they can to do what they do. In my day it was "do you wana see some puppies," now its the same thing only over the internet. I think the internet it makes em easier to catch really, all the stuff on their PC and plenty of electronic evidence. maybe thats why we've seen an increase in the report about this kind of stuff. |
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reality_cheque
09/01/06 @ 11:53
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Man, this will provide me with about a hundred comic strip ideas :)
(well ok, about 5. but that's 5 more than I had before!) |
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reality_cheque
24/01/06 @ 09:00
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Has he been shot now then? Not really been paying attention to the story.
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Comments: 1-29 of 29 in total
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