Russian programmers have developed chat bots that are so good, few people can tell that they are not chatting with a real live human. The 16 year old cutie that your son thinks he is chatting with may in fact be a bot program that is gathering personal data for identity theft purposes.
Actually, given that kids don’t have a whole lot of credit worth stealing, this is probably more of a concern for parents that might be frequenting online dating sites. Always practice safe surfing!