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."
Trust or tryst? :) (Score:5, Interesting)
Craziness.. (Score:1, Interesting)
I always wondered who they'd sue - now I know.
Re:Shoot the messenger (Score:3, Interesting)
However, putting up a warning about the dangers of meeting strangers from on-line, or requiring parent's permission (which I believe is required by another US law) to join the site would exempt MySpace from accountability.
A playground analogy would apply in defence of the claim. If a child plays unattended on a playground and is abducted, the operator of the playground likely wouldn't be held accountable. [Or is unattended in a mall or place of business or whatever... the operator did not have a duty of care to protect the children from external threats].
It's a question of law and deserves to be decided. Precedent has to be determined somehow.
IANAL.
Re:Shoot the messenger (Score:3, Interesting)
That's a really good point. As much as it disgusts me to see parents blaming others or expecting other people to protect their children, a precedent has to be set at some point. Hopefully this case will find in favor of MySpace, so maybe (crosses fingers) we won't have to hear the people with the largest mouths but least common sense bitch so much.
They've been reading Slashdot (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, they've been reading Slashdot. They took our advice and didn't monitor their children's internet use, because we know that monitoring is fascist.
Re:Shoot the EULA! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Shoot the messenger (Score:3, Interesting)
Good people can come from very dark family backgrounds. Bad kids can come from loving families.
Re:Shoot the messenger (Score:3, Interesting)
Speaking as a 33 year old who remembers being 17 and thinking the 15 year old girls I knew were smart enough not to meet up with someone on the internet like that, I'd have to wonder about that. It's very easy for teens to feel all alone in the world as if they were the only ones with problems, when they spend all day at school with other teens feeling the same way. Because most of these teens are skilled at putting on social masks to hide their own perceived pain, some teens never see the pain their friends think they're in.
A 15-year-old girl, wishing she had more attention from her dad, meets a male stranger from the internet to fulfill that piece missing from her life. Not really that farfetched. Do I think most girls at 15 would do this? Definitely not. Many? Still no. But I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that this would be a logical outcome for not-insignificant numbers of kids.
At 15, or even 17, your brain isn't even finished growing yet. Your ability to predict the results of your actions is not as high as it will be at 25 or so when your brain does finish growing (even then, some people are better at it than others - you may be better at it at 17 than some at 25 - but they're as good as they're going to get, and you still have growth left). So a girl, looking for some male relationship, hoping for the best, meets up with some guy she doesn't really even know from the internet. Really, that's almost to be expected - if it weren't for the fact that it's the missing male leadership in her life was part of the cause of her actions, her dad might have expected it.
That's not to speak negatively of any other part of your comment - just the part that seemed to imply that every 15 year old girl you know is smart enough to avoid this (you probably don't know them behind their mask that well, nor could you), and by implication, that all 15 year old girls should be smart enough to avoid it.
Re:I hope they fuck many more men from myspace (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What about parental responsibility? (Score:5, Interesting)
Please re-read what I originally posted. While I knew where the gun was....I only touched it that one time without supervision of my parents, and after the perceived danger was over, I dropped the clip, and took the chambered shell out, and put it back in the clip....clip back in gun, gun back hidden in my parent's room, and PROMPTLY called my parents and told them.
Maybe where you live it is a bit different, but, in the south in the US, MANY homes have guns in them, we grow up with them...protection, hunting, etc. My Mom and Dad put the 'fear of God' in me if I touched it for any other reason than if my life was in danger. He also took me out with him to target practice, so I knew how to properly use the gun, and also to respect that this thing could be dangerous, and was NOT a toy.
What I was alluding to in my OP, was my parents taught me to be responsible at a young age...
I had to come home alone every day after school, and was left alone every day during the summers when I was old enough to be on my own (12-13 I think). When I came home from school...Mom taught me some cooking basics when I was old enough. It might start by me putting in frozen veggies into the crock pot that she'd started that morning, and as I got old enough to use the stove, knives..etc...I had more responsibilities to help with the family meal. It is one of the reasons I'm a pretty decent cook to this day.
All I'm getting to is, that even if parents both work (like mine), they could in the past raise a child that could be trusted and had responsibility. I'm asking why parents today cannot seem to do that same.
I'm trying to remember how old I was when the gun incident happened...I must have been in like the 5th or 6th grade...so was about 12 or 13...maybe a bit later but, around that time.
Re:Shoot the messenger (Score:2, Interesting)
That a nice box to put people in. But its just not true. The whole equation for life does not work. Its not good parenting*time=good children. Life does not work like that.
Making the claim that if the parents spend time with there children then this sort of thing won't happen is simply not true. It helps to be sure, but does not exclude negative outcomes. I would suggest some time at a volunteer group and you will quickly get get used to the idea that victims(whatever that may be) come from every background.
Re:Hypocrisy at its finest (Score:2, Interesting)
It's the collective standards of the posters and moderators at issue - and after years of reading Slashdot, the trend is plainly visible. Slashdot collectively insists that parents are responsible when something happens - but are equally adamant that monitoring tools that would aid the parents in discharging their responsibilities are henious crimes against the childrens 'rights'. These two positions are mutually incompatible.
Stupidity Law (Score:4, Interesting)
Playing Devil's Advocate (Score:4, Interesting)
1. It is impossible to monitor your kids all of the time. We were all kids once, and we know it is true. This has nothing to do with parenting skill.
2. MySpace has been operating for quite a while knowing full well that child predators are active on their site.
3. MySpace could certainly have done more to validate identity (registration through snail mail?), but that would have eaten into profits.
4. MySpace has made a pile of money (mainly by being bought) while operating in this manner.
So, from where I sit, MySpace has made a pile of money by being user-friendly to child predators. Why shouldn't they get sued again?
A different perspective (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd just like to make a few points:
Anyone who believes that 14-16 year old girls don't go looking for sexual encounters--even with significantly older men--has never dealt with teen-age girls. This isn't as one-sided as people want to make it out to be. These men weren't forcing the girls to talk to them. Other than the one young man lying that he was still in high school (he's only 19, so that's not a huge lie), we have no evidence that there was any deception going on at all. The guy who drugged the girl can definitely be considered a predator, but it's fully possible that the other guys simply got involved in a 2-way relationship which progressed to a point where both parties were willing to meet and take it further.
I'm not saying that this was the smartest move on anyone's part, but considering that--depending on the states these people are in--the sexual encounters could have been entirely consensual and legal, the situation needs to be considered from other perspectives.
Having spent many years teaching high school students, I'm quite certain that there's more to the story than is being presented in the article or the law suits.
Re:What about parental responsibility? (Score:1, Interesting)
I think the lack of discipline is tied together with the "buddy mentality" that too many parents seem to have nowadays. They're too busy trying to be friends with their children and dropping the ball on the governing side. Parents, I think, are often afraid to be the boss. I've seen it firsthand. My son's biological father almost killed him when he was 6 months old (and subsequently went to prison for years plus is forbidden from having any contact with him), and my wife didn't want to do anything to hurt him after that. When she and I met, he was 4 years old and a holy terror. He constantly terrorized kids at school, he was violent towards her, talked about using knives on people, and anytime she tried to correct him he flew off the handle like the Tasmanian Devil. He's now 7, and the change between now and then is phenomenal. We still have occasional lapses of back-talking and acting up in school - but now it's more akin to goof ball showboating instead of violent rages. Establishing firm boundaries of what is and what is not acceptable behavior - and having a father to model - went a long way towards helping him to get himself back on track.
Re:What about parental responsibility? (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyway, same things could happen via other Internet communications services, like instant messaging and IRC networks. Those parents should rather take some parenting lessons instead of suing MySpace.