Comments on: MySpace growth continues amid criticism

Popular site is signing up new members at record pace, but remains target of concerns regarding safety of younger users.

[techguy83]

Its a parent's job

It's a parent's job to monitor what his or her kid(s) do online.

Myspace does what it can with 90 employees: Look for obvious underage profiles and remove them. Look for racist profiles and remove them.

The best way to stop grown men from meeting underage kids like that? A parent doing his or her job.

[awalmer]

I agree! It is a paren't job to parent!

But these guys aren't even doing what little they do very effectively. They are NOT responsible for child molesters but they could do a better job of keeping children off of their site.

One option is, instead of banning younger children, allow them as long as there is an adult account responsible for managing the account. REQUIRE PARENTAL APPROVAL BEFORE ALLOWING ANYONE TO VIEW THE PROFILE.

That's my two cents worth.

[Dachi]

I joined when

They promised me it was a haven for sexual preditors. lol

[awalmer]

Well aren't you just a funny little puke!

GROW UP!

[awalmer]

What Research?

My 13 year old daughter has TWO accounts on MySpace, one about a year old and the other less than a year old. Of her "top eight" friends, 100% age 14 or under (despite what their listed age says)!

I say their "search and algorithm technologies" aren't nearly effective enough as she has, or had until I made take it off, her birthplace, hometown, birthdate, age, grade, school, and a whole bunch of other crap that the whole world does NOT need to see.

My question... What sort of security are they using to protect children?

- The don't even use something as simple as SSL when you login to modify your account settings.
- The don't enforce complex passwords.

There are any number of other steps that could be taken but if they don't use the two most basic I certainly don't have any faith that they are using anything else.

It's time to hold these people accountable for what they do or don't do!

Nothing is safe

At least you are trying to police your daughter. The problem is not just the internet and/or myspace. Check what the 13 to 18+ year olds are doing in society... at parties... while staying overnight at a friend's, etc. All efforts at censorship are not effective (and not wanted). It is more important that our culture, the current way of life, gets cleaned up.

[anarchyreigns]

Sure, and we'll hold you accountable...

Sure, and we'll hold you accountable for what you do and don't do as a parent!

[MrFishy]

Get used to it . . .

I just don't see the Genie slinking back into the bottle now. My kids are grown, but were they not, they certainly wouldn't have unrestricted access to any PC in the house, unless they'd worked and purchased it themselves, in which case I'd have to regard them mature enough to set the limits of their own internet fiction (lying). Sites like MySpace.com are pretty much fantasy worlds where anyone can be anyone, so you have to expect the full-spectrum of scum out there to join.

[fakespam]

Ruined Family

Thanks to myspace.com, our family is feuding amongst each
other. And ID fraud in many forms have been happening
excessively.

I did a few things. The every kid in the family got a Mac of some
sort from me (I footed the bit). That killed lots of problems. The
second was erasing a good amount of the asked info from the
site, and now, after about a year, the fake apps and papers and
stuff in the mail have stopped. I've also installed other things,
but I'm into stuff like that (rotating IP box, etc. etc.)

Again, it's the parents who need to know what their kids are
doing. All of the computers in the house are in one room, and
I'm in the room if they want access. Password protected, so forth
and so on.

Don't chat with names they don't know, don't give out phone
numbers, etc. etc. I hear from many other parents about
myspace.com's problems. Well . . . I keep up on what kids do in
my house, I don't know about them.

Besides, the kids seem to hog the computers mainly for Sims 2
these days.

[perfectblue97]

Abvocation of parental responsibility

What we have here is another clear case of parents and the media trying to place the blame on somebody else. Rather than accepting the fact that it is a parents job to keep their children safe.

If a child meets a sex offender online, goes off to meet up with them, an dis abused. It's not the fault of the profile company, its the fault of the kids parents for

A) Not warning them about the dangers
B) Not properly supervising them while they were online
C) Letting them run off to meet a guy that they met online in the first place.

If parents talked to their kids and took more responsibility for them, rather than siting them down in front of the TV and the inernet all day, we wouldn't be reading articles like this.

[Broward Horne]

MySpace Meme

Prediction - Myspace currently has more than 50% of the highest number of users that it will ever have.

http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme?entry=myspace_meme

[peltm]

Ridiculous

With literally everyone using the internet today, it is nothing but ridiculous to blame myspace for endangering minors. It is not myspace who is endangering anyone. It is the peoples choice to enact upon these actions. Myspace was not designed to bring child molestors and minors together...it was simply designed to bring the world together and communicate. In my opinion it should not be critized...even if myspace was not available, there are millions of other websites that bring people together.

[kakphoto]

It was never meant for anyone under 18 anyway

I first of MySpace last summer from friends. When I looked into it, I could tell it was a free place for adults to "cleanly" explore their seedy side. Most of the profiles I see are one step from Porn -- not that I'm complaining. I can't why people are surprized at the attention the site gets. One part of me thinks its way too tame. It is FREE and The INTERNET.

[bobj123]

OR

You simply befriend those that are your real life friends and work through those people. You don't add or "meet" anyone that you have not already met with your friend or atleast through them. Buddy System is there for a reason.

[Amber Miner]

Stop complaining!

Stop complaining and controll your daughter. If you think its wrong
dont let your daughter do it. There are many things you can put on
the computer to restrict her access all together. If she started
dialng 1-900- pnone numbers you'd probably call the phone
company and put a block on those numbers right? Same idea.

[jecates]

Parents vs. MySpace

There are too many people who say "it's the parent's job to make sure their kids stay safe on the internet" and leave it at that. Unfortunately, that statement must be followed with "And if the parents fail, society must step in". I say "unfortunately" because there are many instances where this must occur.

It's a parent's job to make sure their kids learn not to steal - but society must take action if parents fail. It's a parent's job to make sure their kids don't get beaten - but society must stop those parents who beat their children. It's a parent's job to make sure their kids learn about sex so they can be safe - but society must take steps to educate children who don't get that education at home.

Maybe some of these points can be argued due to individual philosophical and religious differences, but it's inarguable to me to allow children to suffer for the shortcomings of their parents. Our duty in society, our primary objective is and always should be, to protect our youth.

That being said, I do believe that MySpace could do more, but I think they are already taking all reasonable measures to protect the privacy of all their members. I don't expect my child's school to post police in a perimeter around the school every day during drop-off and pick-up. It would make my child safer, but it's unreasonable. I don't expect child services to post an agent in every house in the country. It would insure the safety of children with abusive parents, but it's unreasonable. And I don't expect MySpace to hire a crew of 10,000 (if that's even enough) to make sure they look at every single profile and remove all the bad guys and kids who post too much.

[2sasha3]

It Takes A Village

The phrase "It takes a village to raise a child" holds very true. We all have a responsibility to today's youth. If each and every one of us thinks back on our child hood, can we honestly say that our parents were the only people in our lives that had an impact on how we developed into responsible adults? Human kind is not a solitary species. Our survival is based on a communal social structure. Children need guidance from more than just thier parents. They need role models. They need positive reinforcement for positive behavior. I see a great deal of promotion and positive reenforcement for negative behavior. It is not easy raising a child. Parents need thier communities to get involved. For businesses to step up to thier ethical social responsibilities. I am not blaming MySpace. I am not saying a parent is not responsible. I am saying that we should all be involved. Whether we are parents or not. The "It's not my problem" attitude is not helping anything or anyone.

[Stayuptoolate]

MySpace.com

Why aren't children learning to survive with the old-fashioned tool useful fear? Kids should be suspicious, and very afraid of real things to be scared of, so everyone can enjoy taking risks worth taking. Children in Kindergarten will find other kids or their parents after school doing crimes. Every community has registered sex offenders by the score living near schools, nice suburbs, and places kids like to visit. So all kinds of predators like to use the Internet instead of giving away music CD?s and moped rides. When old-fashioned Priests told people everyone should be afraid of going to Hell over every little thing they saw, did, learned, or enjoyed it almost passed for common sense about who or what is safe. So why isn?t it enough to tell kids that any Internet communication could get them stalked, rapped, drugged, murdered, addicted to dope, brainwashed by cult leaders, in prison, or some other pointless suffering? Notice I say any Internet communication.

[RachelnCJsMom]

MYSPACE.COM, No Good Conscience

I refuse to believe that nobility is just a state mind, that it no longer exist. I refuse to believe that a helpful hand is thing of the past, that each one of us are on there own in times of need. But comes a company like Myspace.com who makes me think that it is a thing of the past.

Just this month, my family went thru some tough times as our son had a lapse of judgement and runaway. Missing for 2 weeks but now He is back, safe with us once again. I have to tell you that it was the most grueling and worst feeling I've felt in my life. I don't wish this on any mom or parent.

For days there was no clue to where we could find him then suddenly we had a break. A popular site Myspace.com have the information that would lead us to where our son is. Unfortunately Myspace.com denied us of that information, sighting that it is a PRIVACY ISSUE.

Since MySpace.com Terms of Use Agreement under #12 Disclaimers. include the following,

"Under no circumstances shall MySpace.com be responsible for any loss or damage, including personal injury or death"

I guess they do not feel any kind of responsibility or have the GOOD CONSCIENCE of divulging that information that would lead to the location of a Missing Minor Child who they are aware could be in grave danger.

I am very glad we found our son, No thanks to Myspace.com. I am also very sad and furious that such people(Myspace.com Founders, Tom Anderson & Chris DeWolfe), such company with NO GOOD CONSCIENCE exist.

[lifeguardjay]

You seem to be missing something.

I'm glad for you that you got your son back. I'm sure it was, indeed, a rather grueling experience. However, it isn't MySpace's responsibility to keep track of where your kids are. Trying to foist off your parental duties onto an internet site is, well, irresponsible. MySpace has a past record of cooperating with the police in locating criminals. I'm sure they do everything they can when it's the proper authorities doing the asking. Look at it from their point of view, though. When it's just you asking where some child is, how can they know that you're really the kid's parent? You might be some creepy perv looking for an easy way to stalk a kid. And even if you can prove you are the parent, maybe you're some disgruntled divorcee trying to get around court-ordered visitation rights. Without access to court records, they can't know the truth. And that's only a couple of numerous plausible cases where giving you the kid's whereabouts would make them liable should anything happen.

[rbleboeuf]

MySpace caters to its customer....& IT ISNT PARENTS

As a junior high / high school administrator I find MySpace a scourge on our children.

I have come to explain to our parents that MySpace does not consider them the customer. Therefore, they will be given the runaround whenever they attempt to block their own children from developing sites on MySpace.

I deeply believe that MySpace is responsible not to these preteens, but to the adults raising them and the communities affected by them.

Let's come together as a society and put pressure on News Corp, which recently bought MySpace, to make a stand that supports the adults who are trying to assist preteens through these sensitive self-image forming years!

[easycatch]

Think About It!

The problem isn't MYSPACE. The problem is with the people, and not those, who are responsible in their behavior. Think about it!

[kalsandhu]

Age & Identity Verification

Social networks can be safe if they use the technology from a small company called Genmobi Technologies, inc. Check www.genmobi.com

[calicokat]

I believe it is the parents job to monitor there children when using the internet. Any of the sites could be dangerous. I have seen kids on myspace that I know are not as old as they say, and have told there parents. If a parent does nothing about it how can myspace catch these kids. They use false ages where they live birthdates. I think it is wrong of the kids to lie and even more wrong that their family values will allow them to.