Two journalists of Helsingin Sanomat spent a week on Internet discussion forums and in real-time chat-rooms, hoping to find out how the administrators of the pages would react to messages seeking sex for money.
The targets chosen included the most popular commercial general-interest web sites favoured by Finnish young adults. Sites that were chosen contained messages from the administrators according to which the content was being monitored.
The investigation took place from Tuesday April 13 to Tuesday April 20. Most of the messages were put up between 12:00 noon and 6:00 PM. Helsingin Sanomat placed numerous messages on discussion forums openly seeking paid-for sex using several pseudonyms. Responses were to be sent to e-mail addresses created for the purposes of the investigation. Helsingin Sanomat took part in real-time chats using several different pseudonyms, actively offering participants money for sex.
The investigation involved the following pages: KissFM (www.kissfm.fi), Eniro’s Suomi24 (www.suomi24.fi), SoneraPlaza’s Ellit (www.soneraplaza.fi), MTV3's discussion groups (www.mtv3.fi), Jippii’s Energy Chat (www.jippii.fi), Radio NRJ (www.nrj.fi), the discussion groups of the television network Nelonen (www.nelonen.fi) and the "Hyde Park" pages of Sinkut.net (a site for Finnish singles - www.sinkut.net).
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 21.4.2004
