Original Story: Habbo lost over half its users in a scandal in 2012 when predators were using the platform to groom minors. Part of the healing process of Sulake's reputation and the revival of Habbo's player base involved increasing security, but many in the community regard the new changes to the Unity build as a step back.

For context, Channel 4 ran an expose in August 2012, asking the question, "What is happening in Habbo Hotel?" To summarize, there was essentially no moderation which led to pedophiles using the game to groom minors. There were only around 225 moderators covering 70 million lines of conversation on a global scale. Following the report, Sulake muted every player in-game as they worked on moderation and safety. Today? There's 1,130 moderators, and they hide in the hotels punishing Habbos who break the rules. This leaves smaller rooms and hotels wide open to abuse given the lack of tools given to users.

RELATED: #SaveHabbo Response Pushes Fans Further Away, Many Leaving The Game For Good

With 2012's grooming scandal, safety should be Sulake's number one priority. A founder of the #SaveHabbo movement, Pulx, told TheGamer, "The fact that they have not prioritized user safety systems in their new update over monetization functions such as the vault speaks volumes. There is a complete lack of regard for user safety here that is unacceptable for a company of their size running a virtual world this large."

In the response to the #SaveHabbo campaign, Sulake addressed the room moderation criticism. It stated that it has implemented a 'group members-only' mode which "should reduce the need for moderation altogether as only trusted group members can enter when it's activated."

However, this new feature is not ideal given the limitation placed on the number of members that a group can have. It was already a part of the Flash build but, according to Pulx, "None of the agencies use groups for the main room, so [Sulake] simply don't understand the user journey and the way that users consume its product and use its features. It will not help in the slightest in some of the most populated rooms. Any Habbo that has played for even a short time would know this. It's pretty damning they don't and speaks volumes for the current state of the company."

For the uninitiated, Agencies and fan sites run the bigger rooms on Habbo where players gather. If they do not use the group feature because of its limitations, then those rooms will be, for all intents and purposes, minimally, if at all, moderated unless they are lucky. This could result in scandals and problems akin to those from 2012, inviting pedophiles and groomers back onto the site with the lack of security.

Web developer and beta tester Andings told TheGamer, "If I buy a group, the admins can place furniture, kick, ban, and mute players. In Flash, I as the room owner can kick, ban, and mute, but I cannot give anyone rights. This means players will receive bullying, harassment, and grooming, and nothing can be done unless the room owner is around." As Pulx put it, "Habbo should be leading the way in user safety and giving [players] the tools they need to better protect themselves and their peers." Hopefully, Sulake takes notes and makes changes to its security if they aren't planning to do so already.

Update: Habbo responded to TheGamer for comment on the community's concern over security, particularly in regard to a reprise of the old 2012 scandal that took place, "In the previous, Flash-based version of Habbo, group owners were able to allow selected members of that group to ban other Habbos that came into the homeroom as well as kick them out and mute them. In the Unity version, only group admins will be able to ban members. However, at the moment, the Unity version of Habbo is incomplete. Developers haven't yet been able to implement the functionality yet, which they are highly prioritizing."

However, groups do cost ten credits, meaning that moderation is and will be behind a paywall, and groups are not needed to own rooms.

This is one of the major concerns that the community had, given that only group owners, as of right now, can ban and moderate, but it's apparent that Habbo is working to implement this into Unity, "When you refer to the issues back in 2012, I assume you're referring to the Channel 4 investigation and the sorts of things we have in place to protect Habbos. We're really, really, hot on this. While the recent #SaveHabbo anger has been about these advanced room rights that help our communities run events, the tools they need to protect themselves on an individual basis are there in the game, and are fully adequate.

"Habbos are able to 'ignore' anyone they like - this is, in effect, a mute button. We also have an easy to use set of tools to report all kinds of misbehavior in the game. Users can report incidents such as bullying, cybersex requests, scam attempts and anything else that might make them feel uncomfortable. Reporting tools are readily available including inside all rooms as well as the Instant Messenger."

via youtube.com

As for moderation, "We also monitor the game 24 hours a day, seven days a week across all our platforms, and all areas of Habbo have a word filter which automatically removes offensive words. This is powered by something called CommunitySiftTM technology. This filter removes swear words and racist language, plus email addresses and phone numbers and other words that are unacceptable to share."

Based on Habbo's response, it's clear that it is very concerned about falling back into the trappings of 2012, where groomers and pedophiles infiltrated the platform and took advantage of a lack of security. Implementing delegations to groups solves a problem that the community currently has, and the moderation toppled with catching keywords and an advanced reporting system, should help players keep themselves safe on an individual basis. Sulake should have had these features ready at launch, especially given that Unity is the only available client now, but this response addresses one of the more pertinent issues that the community has, so hopefully Sulake will take note of other problems present, especially after #NotMyHabbo began trending when Quackity, a creator with four-million subscribers, checked out the beta on YouTube.

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