Acceptable Use Policies for Chat Rooms

Internet chat rooms can be useful and interesting, but users with ill intent can hurt the chat room environment. Acceptable-use policies, also referred to as terms of use policies, are designed to keep such users from compromising chat rooms.

Owner's Role

The owner of the website where the chat room is located establishes the rules of an acceptable-use policy.

Freedom of Speech

Freedom of speech arguments, in which a user claims the First Amendment gives him the right to say whatever he wants in a chat room, crop up often. But because the First Amendment applies only to government restriction of speech, a website owner can limit speech as long as she isn't doing so as a government official.

Moderators

Established terms of use policies give chat room moderators the appropriate means to ban ill-intent users.

Legal Responsibility

Chat room users are responsible for comments they make in the chat room. If a chat room argument becomes a court case, users can face punishment if the court decides the comments were unlawful.

The 'Ignore' Button

Ignoring ill-intent users often proves to be the best way to deal with such individuals. Some chat rooms make this easy with an "Ignore" button that blocks all messages from a specific user from being displayed on your screen.

References

• Disabled World: Chat Rooms Bans and Freedom of Speech
• The Consortium for Public Library Networking: Internet Acceptable Use Policies