Chatroulette Series: What Is Chatroulette?

Chatroulette is a Russian website that connects users in a random manner for webcam based conversations. It is supposed to be a form of entertainment that offers its users a chance to speak to strangers from anywhere in the world in a casual, fun and non-threatening manner. Chatroulette was created by a Russian student Andrey Ternovisky in the year 2009. The website gained a huge following by early 2010. Although his parents initially funded the project it is now partially being funded by advertisements.

The manner in which Chatroulette is used is quite straight forward. The website display has two video boxes as also a sidebar for optional text chat. When a user enters the Chatroulette website he gets connected randomly to a partner. The user's live image appears in one video box via webcam and his partner's image appears in the other box. Once they are connected, the two partners can chat via video, text or even audio. If a chat user is not satisfied with his partner, then he can press the "next" button to move on to another partner. Conversations with a partner may last only a few seconds before a user moves on to another partner.

The Chatroulette website allows users to be completely uninhibited with its use. Some of the users have gotten very risky. It is not unusual to see naked images on your screen when you are on this website. This is not always a bad thing. This is the reason why some of its participants keep coming back for more.

Despite these precautions Chatroulette users are generally unregulated. Although the minimum age for a person to use the site is sixteen years of age, very often this stipulation cannot be enforced. Therefore it is the duty of parents to control and regulate their under aged children by discussing the pros and cons of the Chatroulette website and even blocking the site.

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