MySpace Sued For Not Being Better Parents
The lawsuits have started flying and you have to wonder how long it will take before other social networking sites are next on the list.
MySpace Hit With Online Predator Suits
The results of these lawsuits will go a long way in determining the responsibility of every forum, chat service, and website that allows communicating between users. It seems that the parents of these kids feel that MySpace is more responsible for the well being of their children than themselves.
- Y! MyWeb
Can you imagine?
You can get child predators from anywhere, not just myspace. If myspace is responsible, then AOL is guilty of the same offense 100 times over. I feel sorry for these people, but at the same time you have to be responsible for your own internet activity. You don't have to be a tech guru to find out what your kids are doing online, and as a parent it's your responsibility to teach your kids about all the good and bad things in the world so they can make the right decisions.
Surely the state should be sued too?
...for not policing parks well enough. After all we know kids and sex offenders hang out in those places.
How about phone companies? Shouldn't they snoop on every phone call and make sure nothing funny is going on? Isn't that their obligation? The phone service is a forum for communication after all.
Talk about responsibility
From Jessica over at DG's place:
It's Not A Myspace Issue
The 5% figure blew me away. In that particular instance I don't think it's neglect or indifference, but societal conditioning. People here don't lock their doors, to their homes or their cars. In fact, in warm weather, a good number of people don't even shut their front doors when they run errands, nothing but a screen door between the home and the outside world. Everyone knows everyone's kids and all the parents seem to know each other. It's a community where everyone waves when they pass on the road.
Quite simply, there's no perceived threat. And then some children don't know they are being monitored. Up until last year my daughter's friend had a program installed on her PC that monitored every conversation and click. Since she demonstrated good sense, the program was removed this year.
A key and click logger is a
A key and click logger is a great idea. I remember a report by one of the network news magazines last year where the host interviewed three teenaged girls about their MySpace usage. Each strongly denied ever giving out any personal information that would help somebody identify who they were or where they lived.
The host then trotted out the 40-year-old cop who proceeded to tell them the laundry list of personal details he had collected about them. Seems all he had to do was become a friend of a friend of a friend and work his now trusted way toward his targets.
A logger would go a long way to give parents a heads up when the kids need a bit of retraining.