Club Penguin, again that was discontinued by Disney years ago, became an unlikely hit.

Unofficial fan run websites or a surgeon.

Players from Chile to New Zealand, Peru to Portugal.

Club Penguin Online, the largest of these so called private service, said it put on more than a 1,000,000 new players in April alone, taking its total registrations to seven million.

But now Disney has had the site shut down after a BBC investigation found that the game was not as innocent as it appeared.

I think most of the people playing this game are people that used to play it, and I just bored in quarantine.

However, performer fans logging on, hoping to rediscover the game or Children looking for a new place to explore.

It's a far cry from the original strip club, a glue pimps needed strippers needed.

It's awful.

It's awful.

The things that go on there, Disney wouldn't want that property being used like this on what's been going on behind the scenes of this website and community is just a shocking.

It's like game of Thrones with penguins, but its consequences that war people that are running games that Haftar's that are trying to consistently take out other competition.

One man's been arrested on Disney says it's appalled by the abhorrent and illegal use of its game.

It's threatening legal action if they aren't shut down.

At its peak in 2013 Disney said, there were 200 million players waddling around.

It's frozen virtual world chatting and playing games together.

It was almost all kids between six and 12.

For a generation of Children, particularly in North and South America and Europe, this weird and family friendly website was their first taste of social networking.

When Disney closed it down in 2017 it shot those loyal millions still enjoying the game.

What along?

The company said on water along the community Did new versions of the game sprouted up all over the Internet on private servers using either stolen or copied source, code club Penguin Online has become the largest version of the game and recently announced that the multinational locked down from Corona virus lead to record numbers of players logging on.

They're chatting in English, Spanish and Portuguese.

It's still Disney, branded with the same child friendly design But it's definitely not Disney.

The original club penguin was heavily moderated by people and computers.

This is not there's tons of swearing, but almost all conversations end up about sex.

There's even Penguin e sex, basically sexting.

There's also some pretty toxic chat and bullying.

I saw some horrible anti Semitism and racism.

At one stage, I was invited to someone's igloo, which had been decorated by spelling out the N word in chairs.

The original club Penguin also didn't allow any sharing of private details.

People are giving out and asking for in store accounts, discord, user names and all sorts.

In one instance, everyone was invited to a zoom chat.

Many of the players in these so called mature sections of the game seemed to be in their late teens.

But there were kids here to it.

Only says this is a mature surgery.

Sure you want to join you can.

Any kid can just click it and then they just see all this inappropriate stuff.

I met Caden on the lively discord form for the game.

What's were both playing.

He's 14 and it goes, I've seen people say Ah, strip club a glue pimps needed strippers needed.

There's a lot of swearing on there.

I feel like there's probably gonna be someone on the other side.

That's not who they say they are at all.

Like probably an online predator.

I've been asked a lot of crazy things, so I try to not go on the mature servers anymore.

Cadence, Dad assumes Club Penguin was like it used to be.

He's no happy with what it's become.

A shocked.

I didn't know that.

I thought if he saw a club payment, he's in a pretty safe place.

I just just the way I thought.

But now that I learned this, I want to talk to him.

A long time Club penguin fan, Miranda is also not happy with how her childhood favorite game is being used.

As a kid.

I played all the time and just knowing that something that was so family and friendly and fun can turn into something like this monstrous on the Internet, it's pretty said.

What's been going on inside the game is one thing, but behind the scenes it's truly murky.

Since Disney dropped the game a few years ago, there's been a nasty battle for supremacy and ownership of these fluffy penguins and their fans.

Rival versions of the game or servers are accused of hacking, intimidation and stealing in order to get one over on each other.

This former volunteer administrator of Club Penguin Online claims he was encouraged to attack other Penguin Games a doctor users so I would dark staring, which is personal information on the person address.

What they look like their families, information, etcetera, of Adidas, other users going threatened people.

I never swatted anyone.

I just want to make that clear, Never did anything like that.

The stuff that I did is kind of similar to what happened to me.

So obviously, now I feel really bad about it.

I spoke to one of the website staff who denied these attacks were encouraged, but as well as this warring between the different games, A British man involved in Club Penguin Online has been arrested on suspicion of possessing indecent images of Children.

Police say he's been bailed pending further enquiries.

Disney's also issued legal notices total fan run sites and it seems club Penguin Online has shut down, Disney said in a statement.

We were pulled by the allegations of criminal activity and abhorrent behavior on this unauthorized website that is illegally using the Club Penguin brand and characters for its own purposes.

We continue to enforce our rights against this and other unauthorized uses of the club Penguin game.

Whether or not Mork loaned websites pop up in the future is unclear.

But for gamers, this story highlights a bigger issue around fan run services.

They're being run by people who necessary aren't necessarily in a position or qualified to Bundy solve service all.

It's all getting well to have a community that you've built.

But when you get positive and size, there's a responsibility where you have to employ a degree of professionalism.

For now, it seems like the unexpected rise in interest in this strange corner of the Internet has ultimately led to its full.