What is a Chat Room?

A chat room is a place on the Internet where people with similar interests can meet and communicate together by typing messages on their computer.

The vast majority of people in chat rooms are there for genuine reasons and there is an incredible amount of learning and sharing occurring each minute of each day on a global basis.

Chat rooms are a preferred method of communication for young people and present effective communication channels for the disabled and the confined.

Messages that are typed in by a user appear instantly to everybody who is in that chat room. 

Some chat rooms are ‘moderated’ whereby certain messages are not broadcast because they do not conform to the standards set up by the operator of the service.  Reasons for a message being blocked could include: discussion off the topic, bad language or repeat messaging especially of undesirable or obscene text, known as ‘flaming’.

The majority of chat rooms however, remain ‘open’ where messages are posted automatically with no human intervention.

People can often enter a chat room without any verification of who they are.