Behind the Headlines: Site owners should pay to police child chatrooms

The claim came from Robert Marcus of chatmoderators.com in this week's silicon.com Behind the Headlines programme, speaking in the wake of a Home Office report on how to protect children from paedophiles when using online forums.

Marcus said: "I don't see that the issue is solely down to the ISPs. Most of the chatrooms visited are run off individual sites and it's up to the brand that owns the website, chat room or forum whether they are prepared to invest in moderation."

It does make business sense for sites to invest in their offerings in order to make them more attractive to visitors, he added. "Where there's a business reason to attract more people to the site, there's a payoff in investing in the moderation of chat."

The Home Office report, which was leaked to silicon.com last week, demonstrated the Government's support for adult supervision in chat rooms and a kitemark for approved sites.