MySpace Sued by Families of Online Predator Victims 433
MySpace is facing more lawsuits, as the victims of sexual predators have filed suit against the social site and parent corporation News Corp. In total, four families from across the U.S. have joined together after their underage daughters were abused by men they met via MySpace. MySpace has responded to past allegations by putting in place educational efforts and partnerships with law enforcement. The company is also developing technologies to allow parents to have some measure of access to their child's account. From the article: "'In our view, MySpace waited entirely too long to attempt to institute meaningful security measures that effectively increase the safety of their underage users,' said Jason A. Itkin, an Arnold & Itkin lawyer. The families are seeking monetary damages 'in the millions of dollars,' Itkin said."
I hope they fuck many more men from myspace (Score:2, Insightful)
Shoot the messenger (Score:5, Insightful)
Candy (Score:1, Insightful)
Great idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Your ISP for transmitting the email.
Dell for supplying you with the computer.
Finally, Ikea for supplying the desk/chair that your daughter sat on to correspond with the predator. Without them, she probably wouldn't have made contact and talked to the predator.
All of this could have probably been prevented by proper education/supervision. But its easier to sue than it is to raise a kid.
Of course (Score:2, Insightful)
it's not the responsibility of myspace... (Score:2, Insightful)
I know... (Score:2, Insightful)
You failed (Score:5, Insightful)
I have been online since I was 11 (Score:2, Insightful)
My real name did not appear on the web until I was 18.
This is a story of Darwinism in action.
The parents should be sued for not raising their kids right...
Parents Tell Your Children... (Score:3, Insightful)
shifting blame (Score:5, Insightful)
Its not the owner, its the pit bull
Its not the parents, its the website
Re:Candy (Score:4, Insightful)
Where are the parents in these situations (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I hope they fuck many more men from myspace (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Great idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Shoot the messenger (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are a parent, and your child gets abused by some predator through a social networking website, you are a bad parent. If you are unaware about the dangers of MySpace to your kids, you need to get out from under that rock, and start taking responsiblity to keep track of what your kids are doing.
These lawsuits piss me off. I can't believe some parents just think the internet is some utopian place completely disonnected from the real world, filled with funny videos and websites to order their hardware from. There are bad people on the internet just like there are bad people in real life. You should be taking the same percautions for a kid who's sitting in front of a monitor, as a kid who's walking out the door of your house. I'm not even a fucking parent and I know this.
Re:I know... (Score:1, Insightful)
The bartender has a legal responsibility to make a determination as to whether the patron has already had too much and whether to serve them. Even though they frequently do not make that decision for their patron, their license to serve alcohol is on the line each time that someone leaves their establishment too drunk to drive.
MySpace has no such legal obligation. They are not able to directly view their users and make determinations about who is being truthful.
How is MySpace like a daycare center? (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/105
Weighing the options. (Score:5, Insightful)
But frivolous lawsuits are even more reviled, particularly those which could produce a chilling effect on free speech. (Taken to an extreme, the idea that MySpace is at fault would lead to every online site with so much as a guestbook being liable for anything that happens as a result of people posting there.)
The result: Every comment I've seen on this thread (ok, there are only about 20 of them) has been in MySpace's favor. Not what you'd expect from Slashdot, until you factor in the bigger picture.
Re:Parents Tell Your Children... (Score:2, Insightful)
Because it's just never *your* fault (Score:4, Insightful)
One thing that upsets me is that MySpace is already taking steps to correct this.
But it doesn't matter because these parents are teaching their kids that it's okay to not take responsibility for their own actions. Do whatever you want, and if something goes bad, sue someone for letting you screw up. It's not your fault that you stuck your hand in the outlet, there was nothing stopping you.
We are now operating on the assumption that people lack the basic instinct of self preservation. It's one thing to lie or mislead. It's another to give people something with good intentions, but hold them responsible when others abuse it. It's a whole other thing when the owners are already trying to curb the abuse and are doing what I consider *due diligence.*
It's stupid, and these parents are stupid for blaming the service for their kids' screwups. I'm sorry this happened to your kids. I'm sorry that *you* didn't teach your kids that strangers can be dangerous. Own up and hold those actually responsible accountable.
Re:I know... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's no less lame than this lawsuit is. Just because there is much nanny-state-ism deeply entrenched in the country, we shouldn't support more of the same.
Re:I know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Those cases are bullshit just like this is though. Individuals are responsible for their own actions... it's ridiculous to think that my actions (getting drunk, driving, getting in a wreck) can in any way involuntarily impose any sort of legal obligation on someone else (bartender, bar owner).
Now I'll accept that it might not be ethical for a bar to continue serving someone who is wasted, at least without checking to see if they're driving, but unethical != illegal.
"Lawsuit" is much easier to say than "responsible" (Score:4, Insightful)
All of the things that MySpace has been sued for could easily have been prevented with good parenting. Where are your kids going? Who are they talking to online? Sure, they can lie, but that's why you keep tabs. When they get back, ask them if they had a good time at some other place. If they respond postively, you've just caught them in a lie. If not, you can fake like it's old-people confusion. You can't always protect them, though, so educate them. Make sure they understand that they can meet a lot of cool people on the internet, but some of these people want to hurt them. It's okay to talk to someone, but if someone wants to meet them you (the parent) have to get involved.
Here's a newsflash to these un-parents: Myspace isn't the only place where this kind of thing can be done! It is, however, one of the higher profile and richer websites, hence the lure. The potential for these acts have been around since the Internet has. I can recall being sent a picture of some guy's dick in an e-mail when I was 13 (8 years ago) or so because I gave him my e-mail address thinking he was going to send me cheat codes for a video game. At that time I had to go to the library to chat, because my parents wouldn't let me chat online at home. So I wound up in an unsupervised environment where I could have given out more information about myself or location if someone had taken me into their confidence.
While you're at it, why not sue the mall, store, or park where the pedo and kid met up? After all, the kid was there and the mall/store/park didn't bother to watch your kid for you, either.
What happened to the kids was horrible, and from the article at least some of those who actually did the harm have been locked up. This is good. But what happened on MySpace can (and probably does) happen on any other social site, in various large-scale chat rooms, even through e-mail groups. They shouldn't be sued for it.
Victim mentality (Score:4, Insightful)
The failure of people to take responsibility for what they do - along with the general sense of entitlement that people seem to have for everything from "free" food to "free" retirement benefits at the hands of the government - is speeding not just their own demise, but the demise of everyone's freedoms. More laws get enacted to prevent so-called frivolous lawsuits, preventing people who NEED to sue from suing, and the government takes more and more money to fund "just one more social program, 'for the children.'"
*rant mode off, flamesuit mode on*
Re:Shoot the messenger (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I know... (Score:2, Insightful)
Consider some salient differences.
Myspace provides communication. Communication is not inherently predatory. Bars provide alcohol. Alcohol is inherently intoxicating to humans. The proprietor of a bar knows that alcohol exceeding some amount will necessarily produce intoxication. Myspace operators cannot know that communication in any amount will necessarily result in sexual predation. There is a fundamental qualitative difference between what these two kinds of service provide.
Let's say your bar has 20,000,000 patrons and is largely self-service. To what extent should you be held liable to verify the inebriation of each one of them? There is a fundamental quantitative difference between each service's clientele.
Primary responsibility for the safety of some minor rests on those closest to the minor, not with some distant corporation. If the parents failed to instruct their minor children about the dangers of communicating with strange adults and failed to pay sufficient attention to their children's activities, then I cannot see why they have been injured by the actions of Myspace. In the wake of the Columbine High School shooting, the parents of the perpetrators were taken to task for not having paid appropriate attention to what their children were doing. Now the shoe is on the other foot: other parents who have failed in exactly the same way now claim to be the victims themselves.
How? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shoot the messenger (Score:5, Insightful)
Most parents now have to work 50+ hours a week (with both parents working) to keep their children in good schools and pay all of the other things that need to be paid. That they aren't able to keep up with everything their children do isn't a sign of their quality of parenting, its a human limitation. But blaming MySpace is not the answer, and this lawsuit is incredibly stupid.
These things happen... (Score:2, Insightful)
They are so used to passing off their responsabilities and being forgiven, they forget what it means to take ownership of their own fuck-up.
Mod me troll or flamebait if you want. I am being completely serious.
Rules of the internet (Score:3, Insightful)
1. A 57 year old man who rides a scooter
2. A law enforcement agent
3. A criminal out to steal your soul
Re:Shoot the messenger (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You failed (Score:5, Insightful)
You failed to do my job for me by protecting my child from my own inability to monitor their activity and teach them how to make good decisions. Now you must make me rich.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Give me a friggin break. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm so sick of people freaking out about online social sites. Take legal action against the criminal.
People are able to meet people in a huge huge variety of ways. You can just stand on the street and meet people! Are we going to start suing our cities for offering a place for sexual predators to attack potential victims (parking lots, alley ways, etc.)?
It's so hard not to feel angry about this. Myspace is a completely legitimate site to meet people, socialize, check out some bands, etc. If you're meeting someone on Myspace (or ANY online social site) and choosing to meet them in person, sending them suggestive pictures, giving them your phone number, that is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. YOU are choosing to do all of these things.
I've been on Myspace since 2004, have been in contact with hundreds of hundreds of people, and it's damn easy for me to realize I shouldn't give out my phone number, address, or even real name. It's just common fucking sense! Unless you like getting prank called at 4AM in the morning, or worse, having some kind of predator type person showing up in the middle of the night, or whatever, keep your information private!
Re:Shoot the messenger (Score:3, Insightful)
I glimpsed over TFA, the girls are aged 14 and 15. I am speaking as a 17 year old saying that 14 is maybe borderline, but every 15 year old girl I know in school is definitely smart enough not to meet up with someone on the internet like that. The lawsuit is retarded, but I'd definitely not blame the parents. Law may have to define an age below which everyone is automatically stupid (18/21/etc.), but in reality this certainly isn't true.
Granted, the parents probably didn't do what I'd expect them to do, which is simply tell them not to meet up with people over the Internet. They may be bad parents for THAT, but not for not checking every single damn URL accessed and email sent by them.
Re:Weighing the options. (Score:3, Insightful)
On another level, I've also always had something of a problem with the "It takes a village to raise a child" mentality. It's one thing for a community to work together to promote a safe environment for kids. But it's quite another to expect the schools, your neighbors, television, the web, Wii's and whatever else to raise your children for you. It's the parent's responsibility and the most important one that they will ever have. Generally speaking, bad things don't happen nearly as often to children who's parents are actively involved in their lives.
Re:Shoot the messenger (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's a sign of rampant consumerism. I'm raising a family of 4 on 16.75/hr @ 4hr/day (that's $17420/yr). I work from home and we home school the kids. One $40,000 1200-ft^2 house, one $16,000 truck, and a handful of low utilities. No unsecured debt, no payday loans, no over-indulgence on shiny things. We live well and eat even better (Ever eat home-raised pork? It don't get much better than that.) The boogie-man of "good schools" causing people to flee to rich 'burbs with good schools and "force" over-worked families to never see each other is the result of good marketing and media scaremongering, and the gullibility of the general population.
But blaming MySpace is not the answer, and this lawsuit is incredibly stupid.
Indeed.
Re:Because it's just never *your* fault (Score:1, Insightful)
The article states that this suit was filled by the parents of 14 and 15 year old girls. It also mention a similar suit following the sexual assault (note that the guy was not convicted of rape) by a 19 years old (the only perpetrator whose age is given).
Beyond the sue-happy bad parents issue, another problem is that our society doesn't want to realize that 14 year old girls are sexually mature. Quite a few of them will get sexually involved, most of them with older blokes, simply because guys mature later, and inevitably some of them will be 18 to 20.
Hypocrisy at its finest (Score:1, Insightful)
Once again - Slashdot displays it's hypocrisy and double standards.
Whenever parental monitoring is proposed - all the highly moderated comments are the ones crying about how parents shouldn't be Big Brother, tracking their physical locations and online activities is unethical and shows a lack of trust in the child, etc... etc... But when a child becomes a victim - all of the sudden the parents are villified because they didn't do those things.
To society: (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:It's the parents responsibility... (Score:4, Insightful)
Cite (as opposed to site)?
Link?
I hear this a lot, but I can't find a case.
"I remember there was a case where a bicycle manufacturer got sued because some kid got hit by a car while riding one of their bikes at night with no light"
Cite? Link?
perhaps you remember some urban myth probably started by an insurance company?
osr popular urban tails about lawsuits are false, or grossly misrepresented in the example.
Re:Shoot the messenger (Score:3, Insightful)
No, they went out looking for someone who would give them the attention they weren't getting from their parents.
That just who they ended up with this time.
Yes, but if they were getting that attention from their families, they wouldn't need to go looking for others.
And what about all the normal girls that end up in these type of relationships? And anyway what is normal.
Normal is meeting somebody at school and bringing him home to meet your parents before dating him. Normal is spending time with your parents and immediate family instead of on MySpace. But it's not the girl's fault- she wouldn't be spending time on MySpace if her immediate family had paid the proper attention to begin with.
Good people can come from very dark family backgrounds. Bad kids can come from loving families.
Also true. But here's the kicker- kids who have time to get into trouble come from families that don't spend enough time together.
Re:I know... (Score:2, Insightful)
I believe it is illegal in some places to serve someone who is obviously drunk already. And before people start saying "it's the consumer's choice to keep drinking" think of this.. The last time you were wasted, did you get to the point where you said "oh, I think I'm drunk enough now, no more beer for me!" or was it more like "foiaeaf fuck wooo i'm drvnk... give me another!". You get to the point where you can't make sound decisions on your own.
But this has no relevance to myspace. You can't blame myspace, and you necessarily can't put all the blame on the parents either. One thing I haven't seen yet is blaming the girls who did this. I'm not sure how old they were, but by the time I was 8 I knew things I should not be doing. I didn't always heed that advice, but I knew it was wrong.
Re:Hypocrisy at its finest (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Shoot the messenger (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally, I think that what they need to do is raise children capable of making good decisions, and that is clearly not what they have done. I don't know about y'all, but my mommy taught me to avoid strangers, not to get into their cars or accept things from them, et cetera. And you know what? She didn't tell it to me in a stupid baby voice or otherwise insult my intelligence, so I listened to her. Mind you, I didn't listen to everything she told me - but she managed to raise me in such a manner that I was capable of making reasonable judgments.
Most people treat their children like babies well into adolescence. They switch up to treating them like adolescents sometime around the time they're a teenager. They never really treat them like an adult, an equal. Then they wonder on their deathbed what happened to their relationship with their kids.
Their entire lives? That's not remotely what we're talking about here and frankly it is not necessary if you arm your children with the confidence to make good decisions, and if you instill in them the confidence in you necessary for them to listen to you. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have personally watched parents lie to their children. They seem to think that does not have repercussions. Children do not forget when you lie to them; if you're full of shit, they will remember, and they will have less regard for anything you say subsequently. At some point I got tired of my mother (who did her best, bless her heart) giving me bullshit answers to questions to which she did not know the answers, and I stopped asking her pretty much everything.
And that's somehow MySpace's fault? Actually I don't agree that it's even the case for most families. If you look at the majority of these households that are whining about how both parents have to work so many long hours and all that shit, they tend to have a new[ish] car in the driveway that they're making payments on, they've chosen to live in a place that has high rents and for that matter they are renting something nice instead of buying something acceptable and working up. In short, they are living beyond their means. Then, because they are living beyond their means and do not have time to raise their children (the most important job they will ever have) they want other people to raise their children for them.
Now, I'm not saying that everyone in financial trouble did it to themselves. Bad things happen to good people. But the majority of Americans are in debt not just for things they need, but things they don't. They give in to their kids and buy them brand-name clothing, some big fancy backpack with flashing lights and shit, and hundred dollar sneakers. Then they complain that they have to work their asses off to give them a good life. Well, that's not a good life, it's a commercialized life, and in the process they support slave labor and all that wonderful shit.
I'm tired of hearing the argument that people don't have time to raise their kids. Nothing is more important than raising your children properly, and that doesn't mean that you have to live in the lap of luxury. If people didn't spend so much money keeping their children entertained so that they wouldn't have to do any parenting, they wouldn't need as much money. If they didn't need the SUV status symbol to protect daddy's ego, then they could buy a used minivan which would not only be cheaper, but which would get better mileage and be safer to boot.
Re:Shoot the messenger (Score:4, Insightful)
My guess: quite rural. You can get a $40k house if you are willing to live nowhere near a metropolis.
Re:Shoot the messenger (Score:3, Insightful)
Only kids who don't get enough love an attention CAN be drawn out by a vector. The kid who is getting enough love and attention doesn't have the time for strangers- their time is taken up by their immediate family.
As far as the "Is it worth it" question; as far as I have seen (I haven't experienced this personally yet, my son is only 2), but sometimes its not about material wealth, often times parents are forced into situations like these just to keep a roof over their heads, food on the table, utilities running, and put their kids in decent schools. They are left with a decision of which is worse, a poorer education and more limited opportunities later in life or less time spent with the kids. This isn't true in all cases, but in most middle class situations I can understand it.
I can understand it to some extent- but I'd point out that if the choice is between a poorer education and a juvenile delequent, you're better off with the poorer education.
Now lower middle class- with both parents having skillsets worth less than $24,000/year, for instance- there's no way to do it. Which explains why the children of illegal immigrants often become gangsters and criminals. But for anybody with a college degree, then with careful savings there's room for everything.
And the reason you are not a moron is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They've been reading Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Monitoring your young children = Good parenting.
Monitoring your grown-up children = Overparenting.
Monitoring other people's children = Fascism.
Re:Shoot the messenger (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not how I found my current digs, however. That was pure luck and patience.
Homes in this price range will never be featured on the cover of Martha Stewart Living, but they do just fine for those who are not obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses.
Re:Shoot the messenger (Score:3, Insightful)
So you are advocating taking up all of your child's time so they don't have free time to spend online? These sites like MySpace aren't where kids go when they aren't getting enough attention at home. They go there to talk with their friends and share stories. They aren't there looking for someone to replace mommy and daddy, they are looking for other people who share their view, which, no matter how good a parent you are, won't always be you.
I'm not sure I understand this choice here. Does an abuse victim qualify as a 'juvenile delenquent'? The choice, as most people see it, is between a poorer education where their child won't have as many options and fewer chances for success and less time spent with the child, while still providing a happy and healthy household.
Ignoring the rest of your somewhat racist statement... College debt is one of the most prevalent debts out there, it is the reason college graduates have to work 40-50 hours a week for 20 years.
Treat Kids Like Adults (Score:2, Insightful)
Employers place the monitors outward for a good reason - they want to make sure their employees are working instead of spending hours playing solitaire. So, to mimic this setup simply remove computers from bedrooms and place them in the family room where you can see what they are doing. Have the monitor facing out into the room - just like work! For an added effect build tiny, depressing grey cubicles, it will make them want to get outside and play!
Then, restrict website access. Can you surf for pr0n at work? Well, maybe if you work for Playboy, but most of us can't - why should your kid be able to look at nude chicks when you are not even allowed? Turn on parental controls - and learn how to use them. Of course, the odds are your kids are smarter than you and can turn them off, that's why moving the computer where you can see it is so effective.
Monitor site passwords. That's right - your employer can read your email anytime they please, why should your kids have it any different? Spot check on occasion to make sure they are not planning a columbine style attack or talking to MySpace predators.
Restrict time usage. If you don't get your work done at work you can't play on the computer either. Why? because you are fired! Computers are for work, so only allow them for fun if they do the work first! After homework is complete allow some MySpacing or on-line gaming for 1 hour. After the hour is up restrict entertainment to solo game play (no Internet access) or T.V. You don't have time to monitor them for 3 hours any more than your employer has time to watch you.
When they whine "it's not fair" say..."well, take it up with my boss."
Re:And the reason you are not a moron is... (Score:3, Insightful)
The conflict (I think the "moron" went over the top in calling it "hypocrisy") comes down to how much monitoring of children by parents collective opinion would consider to be reasonable. Just to make it interesting let's call the child a 17-year-old high school senior. If she ends up assaulted by someone she met online she should have been more closely monitored in her 'net use? After being a responsible computer user for 15 years?
Other posters in this thread have noted that a daughter in a "good" family wouldn't get into this situation because she would tell her parents about the relationship, etc. I think it's pretty bold to judge a person guilty of being a bad parent just because a teenage daughter doesn't tell them about every guy she meets. It's not like these guys are advertising themselves as sleazy child molesters -- she might well consider him a friend, a guy her age from a neighboring town. I suspect the perverts know how to make themselves sound like reasonable people.
Disclaimer: Amen to those who say this is a ridiculous lawsuit, it really is. But it's just strange that so many posts are so over the top blaming flat-out bad parents. There is an obvious person to blame here: the child molester. Sometimes the bad guy wins and that doesn't mean the good guys need to take sides and blame other good guys.
-Scot
Re:Shoot the messenger (Score:5, Insightful)
My wife and I have totally won over our oldest by a few simple excercises. First we have had open and frank converstaions with her about all subjects. She is informed on all the subjects that she has questions about and some that she never did question because we thought it was proper that she was prepared and not ignorant.
Second, we allow her to make many decisions that we do not agree with 100% (within limits, no need to call CPS). We preface this with discussion of why we think this is the wrong thing for her, caution her about what she needs to be careful of, and most importantly, we tell her in no uncertain terms what we think the outcome will be. This teaches her, in our opinion, responsibility for her actions and the true value of her parent's approval and counsel. The fact that we have made the right call much more often than not with our predictions is well in our favor.
The result? Now all we have to do is caution our daughter about certain actions and behaviors and she does the rest. By the rest I mean that she asks us why we think it is a bad idea and is truly interested in what we think and say. Then she thinks about what we have told her and comes to a decision.
For my wife and I it is the best possible outcome. We dont want automatons for children. People like that make good wage-slaves, but we don't want that limitation to come as a result of our upbringing.
The freedom we give her in certain areas is not only a way to create a free thinking adolescent that is independent and strong, but also a test to see where she is heading mentally and socially. It helps us to figure out where we need to apply gentle pressure and lets us get a good glimpse of what is going on inside her head.
Re:What about parental responsibility? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What about parental responsibility? (Score:2, Insightful)
1) Parents provide kiddies with unfettered internet access and allow them to be online unsupervised without even the basics of common smarts training.
2) Kids get in trouble.
3) Parents don't want to face the fact that it is there responsibility to train and supervise their offspring and want someone to blame for what happened.
4) Sue MySpace like it's somehow their fault.
Hell, There probably were predators on Compuserve when it was dial up at 1200 BAUD, I know I had someone invite me to chat and when I accepted launch a trojan script that mimicked Compuserve's text based login and requested login credentials, not being too gullible even then, I just terminated the connection and dialed back in.
I've always wondered about this (Score:5, Insightful)
Even so, the neighbor kid's parents sued the other family and got a pretty good chunk of money. They got a new TV and a bunch of other things that white trash buy when they come into some money.
I was about 10 years old at the time. But even then, it struck me. "Is this what your son was worth to you? This is the replacement? A big TV and more shit in your shit filled house?"
I lost my mom when i was 9, but at no point did i figure that i had any entitlements coming my way from society. From God - sure. He and I were through.. but nobody owed me anything. As a coping mechanism, I asked my dad if I was going to start getting lots of extra presents. When I was younger, we had met a family where the father had passed away and the kids were showered with toys all the time. He and I both knew i was "joking" (joking as a coping mechanism).
I dont think there can be much of anything more devastating to a young girl than rape or other coerced sex acts (I'm assuming what happened here was only partly consentual..) But it's not clear that a big pile of money is going to make that better now. Where is this money going to go? To pay for the counseling the girl needs? For hymen reconstruction? Maybe it could be donated to to a battered womens shelter or something meaningful? To what extent are the parents saying "if you're going to enable the sexual assault of our daughter, that is forsale for $zzz".
It's not clear what mySpace could do better here. Block the display / transfer of pictures from those under 16 to those over 19? It would be one thing if mySpace was ONLY setup to allow sexual exploitation of minors. Putting a bus stop in a bad part of town is arguably as much of risk as the way myspace works.
We hosted a technology day for middle school and high school girls here at work recently. It was pretty cool, but i was pretty alarmed that one of the prizes was a web cam. One of the things we did was a seminar on online safety for kids/girls, but then we turned around and gave out cameras. Oops
Re:Rules of the internet (Score:4, Insightful)
I have found the difference between that and a teenage female to be nauseatingly imperceptible.
Re:What about parental responsibility? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Playing Devil's Advocate (Score:5, Insightful)
What gives the government the right to tell Myspace that their service must not be anonymous when most of the rest of the internet gets to be?
If we're going to have a change, it needs to be a change that everybody agrees to make - a change to the system itself; to how we connect to the internet. I don't think that's going to happen, though. The anonymous protection is sort of a double-edged sword: while it keeps predators safe, it also keeps the young anonymous unless they reveal themselves.
Which is very much what I'd like to continue. I was quite angry when the DMV forced my 18 year old sister to put a big, red "UNDER 21" sign on the bottom of her car tag. Leave anonymity alone. Taking it away does more harm than good.
Re:Playing Devil's Advocate (Score:3, Insightful)
So have malls, cinemas, street corners or pretty much anywhere else you can think of...with the most common place being the family home or a relations home. So your point is? Only way anything could operate and guarantee child predators could not operate is.....actually there is no way except to kill all children in the world
"3. MySpace could certainly have done more to validate identity (registration through snail mail?), but that would have eaten into profits"
No it would have shut the site down, period. And guess what would happen then? Another site would just start up run by someone else
"MySpace has made a pile of money by being user-friendly to child predators. Why shouldn't they get sued again?"
No myspace has made a ton of money being user-friendly, thats it.
Re:What about parental responsibility? (Score:2, Insightful)
And the 5 of us children and my cousins knew that those guns were for use in an emergency when we were old enough and touching those for any other reason meant severe punishment (usually a hard spanking and then not being able to stay home alone until you re-earned the trust)
The problem today is that you can't discipline your children without someone calling child services. If I had ever called the police because I had been spanked hard, the 20 minutes until the cops got there would have been much worse than what I had already experienced.
Re:Hypocrisy at its finest (Score:2, Insightful)
In my opinion, myspace comes into the "conversations between friends" category, but it is also the "where you are, who you are spending time with category". The parents should ask about their friends (from myspace or otherwise). The other thing to remember is that none of these children got abused *on* myspace. They met someone in real life. Now when I was young, my parents knew where I physically was. I expect to know where my kids are too. I expect them not to be meeting people from the internet, at least not without taking reasonable steps to ensure safety (e.g. meeting them at home in presence of parents.)
I hope I showed how this is not hypocritical. You don't need myspace monitoring tools as a parent to know dropping your 14/15 yr old daughter off at 19 year old random males place is a bad idea. You should have enough of a leash or alternaticely trust with the child to know they aren't going to make their own way there, or invite strangers to your home. If you can't trust them enough, or keep track of them closely enough to know they aren't getting into trouble then you may as well cut off the phone, and lock them in the basement now.
Re:What about parental responsibility? (Score:3, Insightful)
Kids are not seen as human beings, they are seen as ether a pet or a trophy, and thus protected at all costs... but in the long run, the one most protected is the one least able to protect themselves. Kids who never are allowed to do anything that could be "dangerous" have no idea what to do when such a thing happens without someone to protect them.
Whatever happened to "learning from mistakes" and "learning from experience"? Both concepts seem totally lost in the nanny, do-your-homework-or-else state we live in.