UK private equity group 3i resigns from board after investigation into grooming allegations on the social network
The largest shareholder in Habbo Hotel developer Sulake has pulled its stake in the company after allegations that paedophile’s had been using the site.
UK private equity group 3i has given up its 16 per cent stake and resigned from the board following the “challenging circumstances” facing the Finnish studio.
A Channel 4 documentary aired on Tuesday evening described Sulake’s social network Habbo Hotel as a “paedophile haven”.
"3i has actively supported the Sulake board in determining the right course of action in these very challenging circumstances,” read a statement from the group, as reported by The Guardian.
“Following a board meeting today, we have resigned our board position and will cease to be a shareholder in the company."
Advertisement
The private equity group is the second company to withdraw its shares in Sulake this week after the studio’s second biggest shareholder, Balderton Capital, gave up its 13 per cent stake and also resigned from the board.
“We were given some information a week ago that profoundly shocked us,” a Balderton spokesperson stated.
“We had to ask ourselves whether we were comfortable being investors in a business where children were not being adequately protected."
“We didn’t take this decision lightly, as we have been investors in Sulake for over eight years, but the standards required to run a website that children have access to are very high. We felt the company was not meeting those standards.”
In response to the allegations facing Sulake, CEO Paul LaFontaine said it was doing “all it can” to keep children safe, and has recently turned off chat on the website whilst security issues are resolved.
"To keep users safe, we filter content and block inappropriate users,” he said.
“We also employ more than 225 moderators, tracking some 70 million lines of conversation globally every day on a 24/7 basis.”
I've been messaging Paul Lafontaine about illegal casinos, operation of child sex rooms and other illegal activity since September 2011. Prior to that I was emailing Ex-CEO Timo Soininen. in 2006 Timo Soininen responded to one of my emails saying he would investigate the situation of child cyber sex. He ended up neglecting the children by doing nothing. He then ignored thousands of emails from hundreds of people up until 2011 when CEO - Paul Lafontaine took over this child brothel. After 6 years of witnessing some of the most disgusting behaviour I decided to start a twitter account called http://www.twitter.com/habboboycott several months before this issue hit the news.I was so disgusted by what I seen i was ready to dedicate my entire life to raise awareness about Sickos like Paul Lafontaine who many believe organize teams of spammers to gather teens within the network he controls to develope child pornography. Paul Lafontaine has made it his personal battle to ban anyone bringing attention to the sick problems within his community. Imagine sending him am email and within hours being banned for reporting this issue that could have been clearly prevented if anyone within this heartly organization cared. The fact is the people who own Habbo have known about the issue and have done nothing about it. They have actually contributed to the issue by releasing furniture that resemble sex toys, included sex rooms under the staff pick list and banned players who questioned why rooms like "Sex club" is the highest rated room on habbo. All Habbo staff and management should have been arrested locked away for life for knowningly neglecting a serious issue like this. Justice will prevail and Paul Lafontain, Timo Soininen and the rest of the owners will be arrested without a doubt!
