Create Adult-Only Chatrooms on America Online

The aim of this petition is to get America Online (AOL) to create chatrooms that are free of their increasingly strict - and UNAMERICAN - Terms of Service (TOS) policy.

While we understand the purpose that the TOS serves, the reporting method can be used maliciously by AOL members against other members, for personal reasons. Many AOL members feel that we are being unfairly targeted by the community action team to the point where we feel that we cannot say anything in a chatroom, without having to worry about being kicked off of AOL completely.

Many of us have had AOL for years and have created strong friendships and bonds through our non-public chatrooms. For the opportunity to do this, we are grateful. But we have noticed that in the last year or so, the TOS has become increasingly more strict, to where we cannot even joke around with our friends without fear of someone ELSE becoming offended. This completely impedes upon our conversations with our own groups of friends.

Being that we are on screen names that are designated as being for "Adults 18 and Over" shouldn't we be allowed to create chatrooms that are designated for "Adults 18 and Over" to where only people on the ADULT screennames would be allowed to enter?

We don't feel the need for censoring anymore, since the introduction of "Room Owners" - isn't the reason for the "Room Owner" feature an insurance that we can police our own room without having to take up the time and efforts of the Community Action Team? Wouldn't it be much easier to just create a section of chatrooms specifically designated as being accessible to people on adult screennames, with some sort of disclaimer to inform the user that the chatroom they are about to enter is for ADULTS ONLY and that there is no censoring involved, so if they feel they may be offended it would be in their best interest to choose a NON-ADULT chatroom, instead.

We hope that you consider this idea, as it would save your company a lot of time and resources. The Community Action Team could focus on gross violations of the TOS, rather than people being suspended for trivial matters or the mere act of personal vengeance. Please keep in mind that we could all easily use the free services of Internet Relay Chat (IRC), but our loyalty keeps us using America Online. But if the continued censorship does not stop, this could change in the future.