be safe

Thinking of setting up your own chatroom, looking for a place to chat, or wanting to know what chatroom providers should be doing to keep their users safe? If you are thinking of setting up a chatroom, then you must put user safety as a top priority.

You can do this in a number of ways:

Provide the user with information about how to keep safe while chatting/using your service. The more visible this information is to the user the better – think about putting it on the front page or in the chatroom itself. Design your own safety messages, or you can download the SMART rules banner from this website which will rotate the safety messages, take up less room on your site and act as a link to the Chatdanger website.

Provide links to other safety guides, so any user interested in finding out more about keeping safe can do so.

Make it clear to the user the type of service being offered and the audience at which it is aimed. Explain for example if it is moderated or not, and what ages your chatroom is aimed at.

If there are personal profiles attached to the chatroom, encourage users not to post personal information.

Put block or ignore buttons in an accessible place for users, and make them easy to use, so users can stop seeing messages from a particular person if they want to.

Provide an easy and accessible method for users to contact the chatroom provider or moderator to report bad stuff or bad behaviour, and provide information about what sort of things should be reported.

Look at how the chat could be moderated, and think carefully about who the moderators are. Moderators are in a position of trust over the users.

If there is a registration process, explain why information is gathered during registration and what it is to be used for. The information gathered should be limited.