MySpace agrees to social-networking safety plan
NEW YORK--A coalition of law enforcement authorities and representatives from social-networking site MySpace.com gathered Monday morning to unveil an extensive new plan for ensuring the safety of minors on the Internet.
Under the agreement, MySpace has pledged to work with the attorneys general on a set of principles to combat harmful material on social-networking sites (pornography, harassment, cyberbullying, and identity theft, among other issues), better educate parents and schools about online threats, cooperate with law enforcement officials around the country, as well as develop new technology for age and identity verification on social-networking sites.
"Today's announcement is a landmark step forward in providing new protections for teenage members of social-networking sites such as MySpace," Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace's chief security officer, said at the press conference here.
The new Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking, led by attorneys general Roy Cooper of North Carolina and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, consists of Nigam as well as the attorneys general of 49 total U.S. states and the District of Columbia. The group has released a "Joint Statement on Key Principles of Social Networking," which it hopes will achieve industrywide approval from other social-networking sites and Internet providers.
The lone state missing from the task force is Texas. North Carolina's Roy Cooper, speaking on behalf of the coalition's executive committee--Cooper, Blumenthal, Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, and Marc Dann of Ohio--would not comment on the reason why. The members of the executive committee were joined by Anne Milgram, attorney general of New Jersey, as well as Steve Cohen, a representative for New York attorney general Andrew M. Cuomo.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said later on Monday that his office declined to participate because he didn't consider the proposed safety measures to be strong enough.
In the press conference, the attorneys general acknowledged that existing standards of law enforcement simply don't suffice in the rapidly changing climate of the Internet. "You're in an area where what you are looking at today will not be what you're looking at in six months," Cohen said. "There is an exponential change that goes on with each passing week and month, and you really do need to bring together the best minds and the best ideas."
The task force aims for cooperation from other social-networking sites, namely Facebook, which reached its own agreement with Cuomo's office over sex offender data on the site in October. "We are calling on Facebook and other social-networking sites today to adopt these principles, to put these safety practices in effect, and to join the task force," Cooper said. "We think it's critical that this be industrywide.
When a member of the audience asked why reaching an agreement with MySpace had taken this long--the site was founded in 2004--Cooper said that it had been an ongoing process. "We recognized pretty soon that this was going to be a problem and we began pushing legislation, we began exploring litigation, (and) we've been in discussion with MySpace for about two years," Cooper said. "We talked to other social-networking sites. It has taken us this long to culminate in this agreement." He added that the negotiations significantly improved when MySpace was acquired by the News Corp. division Fox Interactive Media in 2005.
Indeed, MySpace's dealings with law enforcement officials have been ongoing. Last spring, a group of eight states' attorneys general wrote an open letter to the site expressing concern about the numbers of registered sex offenders with profiles on the site. After initially asserting that federal and state laws prevented it from meeting the attorneys' requests, MySpace eventually unveiled a preliminary plan for compliance.
The attorneys general confirmed in Monday's press conference that they wanted to avoid legal action against MySpace and social-networking sites in general. "Litigation is costly, time-consuming, (and) uncertain in its result," Blumenthal said. They also acknowledged that law enforcement officials still don't see eye-to-eye with social-networking sites on a variety of issues, namely the feasibility of identity and age verification. The attorneys general believe it's technologically possible; Nigam and the rest of MySpace say it needs more development.
"We are not papering over or concealing our continued differences," Blumenthal said. "This process of discussion has been difficult, daunting, but also extraordinarily educational."
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.
So the attorneys say it can be done. The technical people disagree, for now.
Some how my space gets access to birth certs
Social Security ID
Bio verification (i.e. fingerprint then have access to FBI files to run them, or retina scan, ) Though requiring a fingerprint or retina scan might not be bad, then LE can find and track down really wanted people. But then you go on to an additional cost to the public, which they don't want.
The Public access places won't get the additional hardware, so then parents can actually have a better opportunity to track what their children are doing, though that doesn't cover cell phone texting.
But that smells of freedom of speech rights violation, so it won't go.
Imbee.com gives kids access to features they would find on Facebook or MySpace - which enables them to create and share content with their friends and family members. While it also provides parents with all the user authentication, content privacy and parental controls they need, to have peace of mind while their kids are online.
If MySpace or Facebook partnered with destinations like imbee.com perhaps a partnership might alleviate some of the issues surrounding kids and safety.
This would be a much easier course of action that then to try and add any number of features in order to make their site more secure.
The long and short of it is that the final responsibility falls to the parents. It makes me sick that the Attorneys General think they have the right (and that people are blindly giving them the right) of parenting our kids. We are the parents, we are the responsible party.
End of story.
1. MySpace aggressively seeks advertisers with barely clothed and provocatively posed people in the ads promising a 'hook up' for all ages to see.
2. Constant friend requests from fake profiles containing pornography wanting a 'good time'.
You don't need any partnership with the States to fix this MySpace. Just clean up your act!
As for the advertisers that MS "aggressively" seeks. This is such a double edged sword. Should MS decide to put "decency" guidelines on their ads they would no doubt get slammed as violating "free speech" or probably even "pandering to the right". Again, provided that parents view what their kids are doing and there are no 9 year olds on myspace this should not be a problem.
On to the "friend" requests. First off, this is extremely easy for you to over come. All you have to do is go into your account setting and set the option to have a friend requester submit either your email or last name. That right there ends the spam friend requests so obviously it helps to know what you are talking about. Secondly, the "spammers" go where the crowd is. Trust me but once FB has a community that is anywhere on par with MS you'll start getting spam friend requests as well.
Part of parenting is knowing what your kids are up to all the
time.
If you can't do it then hire a baby sitter who can.
You need a license to drive and a license to fish, but anybody
can have a child.
Go Figure.
Let's face facts: if we allowed children and adults to have sexual relationships out in full view of society, many of the 'bad' things like child forcible rapes and child murders would disappear from the face of this planet, because pedosexuals would no longer be able to be discriminated against by the rest of society unjustly.
That is the reason why we don't have any homosexual serial killers anymore: homosexuality is accepted in the world today, they don't have to hide what they are from friends and family, therefore they don't get mental illnesses from the pressure of hiding that sexual orientation from their families and friends.
Facebook has helped my unite with several high school friends whom I probably would not be able to track down on my own.
MySpace has allowed me to connect with people in various places through out the world enabling me to gain insight into how they live their lives and what life is like outside the states.
You know, for a person who works around so much knowledge you really are an arrogant individual. Next time, try not to be so arrogant as to presume that since you have no use for a particular website or service that no one else does. That is the height of arrogance.
And yes, they can be safe. With appropriate safeguards AND PARENTAL OVERSIGHT OF THEIR CHILDREN'S ACTIVITIES these sites can be made safe.
http://www.sarkipedia.com/sarki/j/jessica-simpson/index.php
Chris Minnick explains how you can take steps to control your online identity-
http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=544&doc_id=142711
In my opinion a safe social network would be a site that does not have a chat room, does not allow profanity and lewd or sexual comments - as well as racial slurs and other hate speech, pornographic material and protects the privacy of it's members.
I am not a tech nerd or a college student but a middle aged grandmother. For the past couple of years, I wanted to join a social network so I could share stuff with my friends and family. But I had been unable to find what I consider a "safe social network". So, in September 2007, I created a safe social network called Our-Social.com.
Our-Social.com (www.our-social.com) is a clean safe alternative to the prominent social networking sites. It has word filter prevents members from being exposed to profanity and lewd or sexual comments - as well as racial slurs and other hate speech. To further ensure that the site remains clear of offensive material and is safe for all ages, all pictures, video and audio clips go through an approval process ? which takes places within 24 hours of submission - before they are posted. In addition, Our-Social discourages members from ever publicly displaying information such as their e-mail address and full name. As another safety precaution, Our-Social does not have a chat area but does provide a members-only forum. The forum is moderated and has several different threads under the main categories of Family, Health, Faith, Pets and Social Stuff.
Members have their own account pages, which serve as personalized control panels, where users can manage all aspects of their account. Management activities include editing profiles, setting privacy levels for the account, creating or editing articles, checking mail, inviting friends to join, sending out friendship requests, a calendar and creating numerous picture, video and audio albums.
The calendar is especially handy for anyone who would like to create a page for a group of people. With the calendar you can keep everyone in you group informed of any upcoming events.
Your website doesn't even address the main problem with myspace and youger users, which is age verification.
Its all fine and great that you made your own website, but its not much different than a family-oriented forum and would suffer the same exact problems if it was anywhere near the size of myspace. Your comparison is like evaluating a ma and pop dollar store to wal mart.
I personally think its great that law enforcement agencies and myspace are trying to come up with a solution. Every little effort helps. After all, not all parents are either responsible enough or computer saavy enough to protect thier children online.
throughout myspace and several not listed (such as fraud,
emotional abuse, etc.) is to make the registrant file a credit card
or valid license. It is not a guarantee, but at least someone
"real" will have to be connected to the particular page. The best
alternative I see is to make it cost a nominal amount so that an
ongoing validity of the credit card or checking account is
established in conjunction with a huge public service
announcement push geared toward parents. Parents tend to
have the "not my child" attitude when told of these potential
dangers. . I know of a case where an emotionally troubled
teenage girl repeatedly posed as a teenage boy drawing several
girls into "relationships." These "relationships" all evolved into
telephone "relationships" At one point she even dressed as a
boy and drove 5 hours to go see one of these girls. The
conversations were sexually charged and these girls thought
they were madly in love. This is just the tip of the iceberg. At
one point the perpetrator of the fraud would have these girls
belive their "boyfriend" died on the way to go see them... When
these "relationships" ended the victims of this fraud were left
confused and severely emotionally scarred. This is an
increasingly huge problem. Parents don't listen. Why do our
children need "friends" they will never meet? They don't and
these are not truly their "friends."
Glitter Graphics Myspace Layout Myspace default layouts Glitter Text
Connecticut Treatment Centers
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by odedy
December 22, 2008 2:17 PM PST
- The only answer to the problem raised in this article is by using online age verification systems such as the biometric age verification online, in real-time, provided by VerificAge (www.verificage.com):
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Reply to this comment
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(27 Comments)- It establishes full segregation between adults and children online
- Does not use any kind of data base. Eliminating risks involved in storing and maintaining data.
- It does not identify the user personally but rather his/her age group category; therefore, the user?s privacy cannot be jeopardized.
- The system is based on a ?one time? biometric measurement that can distinguish a child from an adult with a very high accuracy rate.
- It can assert a user?s age every time he wishes to access a website, content, or while interacting with others
It seems that VerificAge?s solution is going to change the surfing culture on the Net and increase dramatically children?s safety online.