MySpace moves to protect children

June 21st, 2006 at 5:26 pm

Ehm, what’s up with the link to the California Custom Cars exhibition? Is that an inside joke? Or just something that Marshall does on his weekends?

June 21st, 2006 at 5:54 pm

First of all I totally disagree with where this has come from. I mean parents should be responsible for their kids. Don’t just have kids and wonder off and do your own things. You have kids, then you learn to take care of your kids. Know when they are chatting and when they are doing their research. With advance technology this is not hard. Block the damn ports and sites. Get some hacker to clean up the computer so that their visits to certain sites comes up empty. But to file a lawsuit against an online company because your child ran off and had sex with a maniac, thats just insane.

As a parent, learn about what is happening online. Learn about what your children may want to try out. Then see where you need to step in. Myspace to my knowledge should not be held accountable for any of this non sense.

June 21st, 2006 at 7:03 pm

Myspace is obviously trying, but I think it’s the kids fault sometimes, doing stupid stuff like adding adults as friends they don’t even know. I mean, come on!

June 21st, 2006 at 8:04 pm

I agree with dotsmedia’s comment and the section of the original post. There is no way to keep the maniacs from lying to get to what they want. They will do anything to achieve their goal. Parents have to watch what their children are doing. Like dotsmedia said “you have kids, then you learn to take care of your kids”. The preditors that work the angles offline and online aren’t going to stop no matter what laws are passed and no matter what web sites like myspace does. There would have to be some extreme measures taken to prove identity and age, similar to those that are done in the offline world, to rein in what’s goings on. It’s going to be unlikely that an online community like myspace is going to establish brick and mortar shops around the country and world for kids to walk in and sign-up - they would be finished. So the bottom line is, watch what the kids are doing, who they’re talking to online or off, and where they’re going. It may feel like prying and spying but it’s in their best interest, they just don’t know it yet.

June 22nd, 2006 at 4:53 am

Understandably, much of the focus in this debate is on predators. But another huge problem is that every porn star and, worse, men trying to “recruit” porn stars are on MySpace. DotsMedia and like-minded folks are being willfully irresponsible saying the whole burden falls on parents. Yes, of course, parents have to watch out for their kids. So, in that case, they should ban their kids from MySpace because of what they might come acorss there. I’m not saying pron stars and their fans shouldn’t have their own network, but it shouldn’t be the same one that 14-year-old kids are part of. That’s like saying that the corner store can put porn on the shelf next to the bread and its the parents responsibility to shield the kid, so don’t let him run an errand to the store. Everyone has some responsibility in the kinds of public and semi-public spaces they create.

June 22nd, 2006 at 5:46 am

Dots definitely brings up the best argument when it comes to protecting kids on sites like myspace. It should absolutely be the responsibility of the parent to monitor where their child is going, what they are saying, and who they are talking to. I think some sort of history log, like the one AOL instant messenger has, should be placed onto the website to give the parents full access to their childs profiles and conversations. It’s one thing for the parent to take their childs word that they aren’t talking to people, but to actually see it could stop anything before something happens.

June 22nd, 2006 at 6:20 am

As a parent of teenage boys, one of which has a Myspace profile, it is soley my responsibility to watch what they are doing and who they talk to. But it certaintly helps that Myspace is taking steps in helping me along the way.

June 22nd, 2006 at 8:30 am

First let me state that I am speaking as both an IT professional and as a parent.

In the 1980’s there was a huge battle over censorship of records. They came up with the idea of labeling records which may contain objectionable subject matter. One side of the argument rallied behind the cries of free-speech, the other side of the fence said that labeling records would hurt record sales.

Labeling seemed to fix this for both sides. You can still exercise free speech; you just have to tell people if your speech is for adults only. The labels did not hurt record sales, but a parent could quickly look at a record and decide if they needed to take a closer look.

Now onto the MySpace issue. First of all, MySpace should not be liable for children meeting adults through their site, that is ridiculous. However, the restrictions they are placing are fairly minimal. You have to know the minors complete name, not just their screen name. So brothers and sisters can talk, because presumably they would know each other’s full names.

Secondly, as a parent it is my duty to track my kids and know what they are doing. However, when my kid goes to the movies I can rely on the movie ratings board to set ratting by recognized standards and the movie theater to enforce those ratings.

If movies work this way why not social-networking sites?

Let’s set up a rating system and rate the pages on MySpace, then I will be able to tell pretty easily what my kid can visit. Right now I simply do not let her on MySpace, but if I could set up an account for her and limit, by ratings, what she is going to be able to see - then I could allow her there. So this is one customer MySpace is loosing because they don’t have security practices in place.

I am not shirking my responsibilities, on the contrary, the only way, currently, for me to meet my responsibilities adequately is to disallow her visiting the site all together. However if they took some more precautions then I could allow her there, and not be shirking my responsibilities.

June 22nd, 2006 at 11:39 am

Steve:

“That’s like saying that the corner store can put porn on the shelf next to the bread and its the parents responsibility to shield the kid, so don’t let him run an errand to the store. ”

I’m from the UK. Most corner newsagents DO sell porn. The responisbility here comes in two parts: the responsibility of the parents for their children’s actions and the responisibilty of the shop owner for keeping an eye on his store. What the newsagents ended up doing was just putting the porn on the top shelf so the kids couldn’t get to it. Wouldn’t myspace be more sensible to do something like this instead? If your account has adult content or is “adult ariented” it can only be accessed by users over 18? It doesn’t sound like it would be a tough thing to code.

June 22nd, 2006 at 12:18 pm

I applaud Drawmack’s comment and the way it takes a middle road on the issue. Yes, the primary responisbility for parenting falls on the parent. And yes, a service like MySpace that caters to such a huge base of young users must also share in the responsibility for how its service is used.
We are all responsible! Are the commenters who shun any kind of proactive steps by MySpace towards the issues of safety for kids afraid that their experience with the service will degrade due to these steps? Or is it a deeper rejection of responsibility on the net in general?
We live in a complex media world with a million ways for today’s kids to access dangerous, illicit, or just plain unwanted (by their parents) content. Personally, I love this level of access and choice. But I definitely do not envy the parent that has to try to make sure their child is being safe with the digital cable, the net-connected family computer (or worse kid’s bedroom computer), the net-connected-text-messaging cell phone, the online 3D game system, and even the net-cafe down the street.
My point is, barring extremely draconian, uber-watchful parental presence, kids are able to go where they want online, and do what they want. The fact that so many of them go to one particular site is a great OPPORTUNITY to give our kids a safe online experience. And giving kids a safe experience online is NOT impossible. Whyville.net has managed to do it, and they still manage to be a very popular place for kids to go online. I invite parents and naysayers to check out my article on Adotas about just how safe a cool place online for kids can be. As adults (not just parents), it is our responsibility to make this planet a safe and beneficial place for the next generation. Like it or not, It really does require everybody’s involvement.

http://www.adotas.com/2006/06/.....-for-kids/

June 22nd, 2006 at 3:55 pm

I think Myspace should keep their same rules, page are not allowed to be seen in public for kids under 14.
Studies have shown that most molestation often takes place at a child’s home by a known relative, 80% to be exact.
Child predators are everywhere not just online. We’re talking about “social networks”. If Myspace continues to get into people’s personal life just so parents don’t have to monitor their children online then Myspace will end up being another AOL and Msn chat rooms where many teenagers have rarely visit much.

If you notice most of the AOL, yahoo, and msn chat rooms are full of porn advertisers, child predators, adults and undercover cops. Ever since Myspace became popular many teenagers are often not use chat rooms as often as before. Social networks have changed the way teenagers communicate with friends online. If Myspace turns into AOL, msn and yahoo chat rooms with undercover cops patrolling the site then many teens will get turn off and eventually switch to another social site.

Speaking from a Myspace user, I’m safe to say that many loyal Myspace young users often are not in support of undercover cops patrolling the site. Teens prefer not to have cops patrolling their personal space and Myspace is consider a personal space for many teens.

June 23rd, 2006 at 1:50 am

One of the draws of MySpace for its young users is the freedom, however illusory, of adult scrutiny. See e.g. danah boy’d excellent paper on the subejct http://www.danah.org/papers/AAAS2006.html

The moves by MySpace to “police” the site seem more like a News Corp PR exercise than a properly thought-out strategy for protecting children online. If young users feel themselves observed, it seems very likely they’ll simply defect to a new site where they are not observed. The launch of social networking sites intended for a global audience but hosted in e.g. Jamaica is something that TechCrunch has noted recently - see http://www.techcrunch.com/tag/SmutVibes.

The above example is relatively niche, but it seems virtually inevitable that a more general-purpose social networking site like MySpace will launch in Jamaica or Russia or somewhere generally less litigious than the US. If MySpace insists on policing the activities of its younger users, thus hastening their defection to a site completely unmoderated and extra-territorial to evade that unwelcome intrusion, the onus will be back on the parents to look after their kids. So I’m very much in agreement with DotsMedia - trying to force MySpace to act in loco parentis will only drive the users somewhere less savoury, and responsibility ultimately has to devolve to the parents either way.

June 23rd, 2006 at 2:07 pm

Ben here’s an informative website you can read http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/main......ntID=32360
Maybe now you can educate youself about child rape cases.

Research indicates that 46 percent (46%) of children who are raped are victims of family members. (Langan and Harlow, 1994.)
The percentage are actually much higher since most case are not documented. Also the documents are researched in 1994. The percentage are said to be increased.

Eleven percent (11%) of rape victims are raped by their fathers or step-fathers, and another 16 percent (16%) are raped by other relatives. The percentage may not be in the 80% ranges, but it’s up there.
The sad part is the media ignores relative rape cases and focus most of the attention on a social network such as Myspace. Parents ignore that children can also be endanger in their own home by someone they trust.

November 6th, 2006 at 12:27 pm

The things i dont get is that i understand that alot of people are putting things on myspace that are not right but for some people that who that is there is only way to tawlk to people thay have blacked it from so many places its dume people just need to watch what the heack thay put on the net and thqats real bec my sisi is 15 and goes on myspace an i dont even let her go on it anymore so thats that i understand

January 18th, 2007 at 12:22 pm

Hey Sawp Everybody