Disney has put the ultimate nail within the coffin of Club Penguin Online, one of many largest unofficial fan servers for the informal multiplayer game.
The server was shut down Friday following a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown from The Walt Disney Company earlier within the week.
This follows an investigation by the BBC which discovered that customers of the net social community – most of whom are kids and youngsters – had been being uncovered to express, sexual and racist messages. One man has since been arrested on suspicion of possessing little one abuse pictures.
“Child safety is a top priority for the Walt Disney Company and we are appalled by the allegations of criminal activity and abhorrent behaviour on this unauthorised website that is illegally using the Club Penguin brand and characters for its own purposes,” Disney advised the BBC.
“We continue to enforce our rights against this, and other, unauthorised uses of the Club Penguin game.”
by way of BBC
One of the primary social networks particularly geared toward kids, Disney’s Club Penguin launched in 2005 and noticed greater than 200 million customers at its peak. This unique model of the positioning options content material filters and human moderators to maintain inappropriate messages from being shared.
However, following its closure in 2017, unofficial clones of the positioning started to rear their head – and lots of of those disabled the unique content material filters. The BBC discovered that moderators had been now not eradicating racist content material and gamers had been partaking in “penguin e-sex” – sending and receiving express messages.
Club Penguin Online had beforehand accrued over eight million customers throughout the course of two years, making it one of many greatest fan replicas of the game to seem following the closure of the unique official launch. The title not too long ago skilled a surge in additional than 1,000,000 customers in the course of the coronavirus pandemic.
In a since-removed blog post, Club Penguin Online confirmed it might now not be operating after May 2020 as a consequence of a copyright declare. “If anyone does try to revive the game, it’ll be extremely difficult now as you’ll have to worry about Disney, and in all honestly, it isn’t worth it,” reads a press release from the positioning.
The full declare, which could be seen on Lumen Database, states that the web site “is an unauthorized version of the Club Penguin game and contains infringing copyrighted content.”
