As a fairly responsible parent, I checked the safety guidelines that the website lists.  They include “a dedicated staff of moderators constantly monitors the forums to remove abusive or racist language, inappropriate images and adult content”.  Good enough to give it a try, right?  Nope.  Couldn’t be more wrong.

The kids played on the game for a couple hours before we kicked them off and forced them to go outside and enjoy the beautiful day.  My daughter forgot to log out and when I hopped on to my computer to see how my fantasy baseball team was doing, I saw this:

Yep, it only took a few hours for some scumbag to try and “cyber” with my kid.

Now what’s interesting about Gaia is that they state the site is targeted at kids ages 13+.  By doing so, they are able to circumvent many of the rules set forth by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which essentially saves them a ton of money as they don’t have to monitor as closely.  By making it 13+, they can really follow the same rules as games like Everquest and World of Warcraft from a safety and monitoring standpoint.

So, we had another talk with the kids at dinner about Gaia and reminded them about some basic online safety.  Ultimately its our responsiblity to teach the kids online safety, as we can’t count on these companies to create a safe online environment.

Needless to say, the kids won’t be playing on Gaia Online anytime soon.