Gossip site ‘a horrific concept’

The three major cellphone networks are blocking access to controversial chat website Outoilet.

The three major cellphone networks are blocking access to controversial chat website Outoilet.

Published Nov 11, 2010

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Outoilet, the infamous online forum where school pupils meet to make sexual assignations, describes itself innocuously as the “original gossip site”.

Outoilet welcomes users with the words: “The only place you can gossip without anybody knowing who u r (sic).”

Hundreds of people around the country have signed an online petition calling for the closure of Outoilet, a website where schoolchildren are able anonymously to discuss their communities, gang violence and sex among pupils.

The online petition launched in April had attracted 1 343 signatures by late Tuesday.

Outoilet users are able to choose to chat in a number of “rooms”. These include provinces, schools, universities and hospitals.

Clinical sexologist Marlene Wasserman, also known as Dr Eve, slammed Outoilet as a “horrific concept”.

She said technology had changed the way children were able to communicate about sex and this had caused a “sexual revolution”.

“The thing that has created huge change is technology,” Wasserman said.

“There is not an emotional connection. There is much more opportunity to explore without realising the danger.”

Wasserman also described as “horrific” children who filmed or photographed classmates’ having sex and then distributed those images around the school and on the forum.

On the page of an Athlone high school, one user asked that “any cute sexy and very horny girl” call him on his cellphone.

The Cape Times contacted the user, “mr hot and juicy”, and asked him why he used Outoilet.

“I wanted to let people from all over the country invite me,” he said.

Asked whether he had posted the message to meet girls, he asked: “Is there a problem with me putting my contact on the website?”

Outoilet users commented in the rooms on schoolgirls who were pregnant, ranked the most attractive girls in their classes, and asked for people to call them on their cellphones.

Online behaviour expert Ramon Thomas said yesterday that technology had allowed communication to become very impersonal.

“You don’t know, or care, whom you are speaking to.”

Thomas said the danger of this form of communication was that people were unable to make informed decisions.

It was not known why Outoilet had become so popular in certain communities, he said.

“It is the mobile version of reality TV shows.

“It is giving permission to be very explicit in the way they are celebrating this culture of voyeurism which has become acceptable.”

Online experts have said it would not be possible to shut down the website because its domain is hosted in Russia.

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