MySpace, Facebook spar over family safety
MySpace announced on Tuesday that it has deleted 90,000 accounts owned by registered sex offenders. It's good news for families, for MySpace, and for the state attorney general of Connecticut, who demanded last month that the News Corp.-owned social network turn over a roster of names.
It's especially good news for Sentinel, the security company that MySpace used to track down the accounts. And now Sentinel appears to be trying to take advantage of its success with MySpace into a PR campaign partly aimed at getting Facebook into signing a contract as well.
John Cardillo, the CEO of Sentinel, gave an interview to TechCrunch in which he said thousands of those who were banned from MySpace can now be found on Facebook--not yet one of Sentinel's clients.
"As the first and only social-networking site to use state-of-the-art technology to identify and remove registered sex offenders from its site, MySpace is proud of its leadership position and hopes that Facebook follows our lead in providing their members with the same protections," a statement from MySpace read. "As part of our long-standing partnership with law enforcement and state attorneys general, we will continue to readily provide information on these removed offenders for their investigations."
Unfairly accused? With the headline of the TechCrunch post referring to sex offenders on Facebook as "refugees," and Cardillo calling the Palo Alto-based social network a "safe haven" for them, you'd think that there was some kind of mass creation of Facebook profiles on the part of sex offenders who had seen their MySpace profiles axed. There is, however, no evidence of that. Millions of people have profiles on both social networks, so it's safe to assume that sex offenders probably do as well.
Facebook's representatives weren't thrilled by the "safe haven" allegation, to say the least.
"For a company that has a mission to keep kids safe, we find it irresponsible that they wouldn't share this with us," representative Barry Schnitt told TechCrunch in an addendum to the tech blog's original post. "Or, if not with us, how about with law enforcement? This could have been an announcement that Sentinel and Facebook removed 8,000 potential sex offenders. We still don't have the information on who they are. If you are willing to share that with us, we will investigate immediately."
Later, Schnitt told CNET News that while about 4,600 of the 8,000 names on Sentinel's list were directly tied to Facebook user IDs and have now had the corresponding accounts disabled, the rest only matched up to names. One of the names on the list, for example, was "Aaron Smith"--which has more than 500 member matches on Facebook.
Chris Kelly, Facebook's chief privacy officer, also described in a reaction to the story how Facebook monitors its service to protect minors. "We have not yet had to handle a case of a registered sex offender meeting a minor through Facebook," he said in a statement.
PR scuffles between Facebook and MySpace are nothing new. In this case, however, it appears that a third party, Sentinel, is using its success with one client (MySpace) to force another (Facebook) into signing up for the service as well--and is doing so by manipulating media coverage to back Facebook into a corner.
What we would prefer to see is a more pragmatic and methodical policing of social networks for ongoing threats. Shock-and-awe press tactics aren't the way to go, especially because threats on the Web are much more complicated than they may appear.
Let's all take a deep breath and remember that this is about the safety of kids everywhere, not about marketing or selling a product, or looking better in the eyes of the world than your industry competitor.
Caroline McCarthy, a CNET News staff writer, is a downtown Manhattanite happily addicted to social-media tools and restaurant blogs. Her pre-CNET resume includes interning at an IT security firm and brewing cappuccinos. E-mail Caroline. 
Firstly, kids safety is the responsibility of their parents - not MySpace, not Facebook, not Sentinel. If your kids aren't savvy enough to recognise grooming, etc, then either you sit there with them whilst they are visiting these sites or you don't let them visit.
Secondly, whilst in no way would I defend the crimes of these people, why does that mean that they cannot have an account on a website? We just assume that they are only using the network in order to create the opportunity to commit further crimes? And how long are you banned for? A couple of years, for life?
But think of the children? If we, as parents, really thought about our children, didn't outsource our responsibilites then we wouldn't need security companies and self-appointed crusading relection seeking A-Gs.
It is a business that makes money off a place where children socialize and network. You think it is not that business that offers that service not to do the things necessary to protect their clients for known harm? They do have a responsibility and not doing anything about it means that they don't care about them. It is a two way street. If we allow people who we know are harmful to someone else in an environment, then we are not taking on our own responsibility. It is not just about being a good parent. The world is much bigger now.
If you sell, create and offer a service or a product - then it is your responsibility to make sure it is safe.
As a web site owner of safety and security products, I hear way too many stories from victims to think we shouldn't have each other's back. Watching out for those around us is just the right thing to do when there are so many out there bent on criminal agendas.
I agree that we shouldn't outsource our responsibilities as parents but any tool that can help us fulfill our responsibilities is welcome. Keeping an eye on our teens so they are safe is a hard and time consuming job. I'm grateful for anything that can help me with it.
http://cfcoklahoma.org/New_Site/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=0&func=view&id=628&catid=21#628
What you've implicitly done here is state it's the counties fault that your kid found a way to play on the freeway. It's not, it's your fault for raising an idiot child to begin with. Deal with it and stop blaming others for your failures. YOU are the failure here, not your child, not Myspace and not the rest of us. YOU.
Deal with it.
"What you've implicitly done here is state it's the counties fault that your kid found a way to play on the freeway. It's not, it's your fault for raising an idiot child to begin with. Deal with it and stop blaming others for your failures. YOU are the failure here, not your child, not Myspace and not the rest of us. YOU."
Completely agree. Reminds me of the story about a kid killing his mom and almost killing his dad over a video game. Yea right the video game made him do it. LOL The judge laughed at that defense too. If I can find that story again I'll link it.
As for the sex offenders that lost their accounts, were all of them child predators that used the internet as their means of predation? If not, that doesn't really seem fair and doesn't do much more to protect children from online predators (not that I condone sexual predation, but rather, let the punishment fit the crime).
The best way to protect children from predators is to educate children. The previous generation of children learned to not talk to strangers. This generation needs to learn to protect their information and not talk to strangers online.
As for the sex offenders that lost their accounts, were all of them child predators that used the internet as their means of predation? If not, that doesn't really seem fair and doesn't do much more to protect children from online predators (not that I condone sexual predation, but rather, let the punishment fit the crime).
The best way to protect children from predators is to educate children. The previous generation of children learned to not talk to strangers. This generation needs to learn to protect their information and not talk to strangers online.
Being labeled as a sex offender does not automatically mean that they are a child predator. What about the 17 year old kid who was dating a 16 year old and then turned 18, and because the parents of the 16 year old didn't like them, they hauled them to court. Because the legality of their actions literally changed overnight, some people have to register as a sex offender for the rest of their lives. Does denying them access to myspace or facebook really do anything to protect children? I doubt it.
I am not saying that none of those 90,000 deserved to have their accounts deleted, in fact, I am sure many of them did. However, I think that using the broad category of 'registered sex offender' to discriminate is just that, discrimination.
As for the punishment fitting the crime, I believe that if you use a computer (or gun) to commit a crime, you should never be allowed to use a computer (or gun) ever again. Making that distinction in the conviction of criminals would go a long way to protect potential victims, without unnecessarily limiting the rights of others.
You said it. Sentinel should be ashamed.
@pommiegranit - totally agree that parents should be responsible for the safety of their children, but that doesn't mean proper precautions shouldn't be taken by the sites that they frequent. And c'mon - you've been a kid...if your parents told you not to do something, what was the first thing you did when they left the house? Or was I just a mega-horrible kid?
A strong balance of education from parents and cooperation from the websites with the gov't and services like Sentinel is what it's going to take to properly combat this...
BOO on sentinel for this BS media scare. I hope facebook
There, that wasn't hard was it?
If you consider it the responsibility of Sentinel/Myspace/Facebook to protect your children online, who do you hold responsible when your child takes a bus across town and ends up with crack dealers and prostitutes? The police? The bus service? Your neighbors?
Sentinel has shown their true colors. They are preying on your children, threatening to expose your kids to child raping predators if they are not given enough money from enough companies. It's disgusting to the extreme and they should be forced to fail because of it. I rarely think government intervention is right, but here it's bordering on required. Preying on children for profit should be illegal. Period.
Parenting is one of many jobs that should never be outsourced. Making excuses proves you're unqualified and should never have been allowed to reproduce to begin with.
Typical trash answer. Sure you can control what your kids do by teaching them right from wrong, teaching good values, letting them know the boundries and enforcing them, etc. Yea kids will be kids and stuff with happen but being a good parent will mitigate that a fair amount. My wife is a elementary school teacher so the stuff I hear on a daily basis about this is staggering. Once a week she hs to yell at 3rd grades who are repeating South Park or Family Guy lines in class. Brilliant!
The parents can't just baby sit them on the computer all day.
And kids aren't as stupid as people think.
There, I think that said it all.
Big companies who shut off liberty are by no means a substitute for parenting. Parents should parent instead of hounding others to help them.
Parents don't "hound" others to help them if there is not a cause for it.
It's idiot parents like you that seem to think parenting is a job that ends once the kid is born that is causing all the problems in the world today. Parenting is a life sentence with the possibility of parole in 18 years. Get that through your concrete head. It's not the world's responsibility to protect your children from themselves, it's YOURS.
This is not just about parents keeping an eye on what their children do, the world is bigger now because of interent and cell phones. If I own a company that offers a place that kids a place to socialize, then I have a responsibility to do what I can to keep a safe environment. Yes, parents need to pay attention, but not having them on the internet is not teaching them what to look for either. At some point they are going to be "out there". I see this as more then one area of responsibility. More parents I am sure would agree with me.
Kids are also very impressionable no matter how much you teach them, or watch them....things happen. It is not just about making a buck...it's about showing responsibility for how you operate in business. If I did not know your kid, and I saw or heard something I knew to be dangerous, I would step in. Not always popular, but who cares when safety is a true concern?
Raise your own kids and quit expecting everyone else to accept responsibility for your actions.
If you chose to have a kid, it's 100% YOUR responsibility to look after them. Period. I refuse to be any part of it, and shame on any company that does as well.
- A long awaited report from the Internet Safety Technical Task Force concludes that children and teens are less vulnerable to sexual predation than many have feared.
The report also questions the efficacy and necessity of some commonly prescribed remedies designed to protect young people.
FULL REPORT pdf:
The task force was formed as a result of a joint agreement between MySpace and 49 state attorneys general.
http://cfcoklahoma.org/New_Site/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=0&func=view&id=628&catid=21#628
- by jameygelina February 5, 2009 2:19 PM PST
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