MySpace To Be Made Safer For Users

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "'When News Corp. bought the social-networking Web site MySpace.com last July, the media company got two surprises, one good and one bad,' the Wall Street Journal reports. The good news: Traffic nearly doubled in the last half of last year. The bad news: MySpace is being criticized for exposing children to risqué content and sexual predators. In response, 'News Corp. plans to appoint a "safety czar" to oversee the site, launch an education campaign that may include letters to schools and public-service announcements to encourage children not to reveal their contact information."

Comments

MySpace PSAs?

[gEvil (beta)]

Good to see that another company has found a way to pass off advertising as "public service announcements."

Shoot.

[grub]

I guess it's back to trenchcoats, candy, and schoolyards for me.

Re:Shoot.

[TubeSteak]

Just last week, I was sitting on a bench, in a hallway (talking on my cellphone) when a class let out.

Some female teacher happened to be walking by at the same moment and she was holding a small bowl with some candy in it.

She kinda waved it around and said "free candy, please take it, I don't want to have to eat it."

Now, she had stopped almost exactly in front of me, but on the other side of the hall. It took all my willpower not to blurt out "My mother told me to never take candy from strangers."

MySpace To Be Made Safer For Users

[TubeSteak]

Step 1. Banning any and all use of the color Pink
Step 2. Deleting all profiles that use the word "like" more than twice
Step 3. DeLeTiNg AlL PrOfIlEs ThAt LoOk LiKe ThIs
Step 4. Making MySpace safe from internet predators
Step 6. Profit!

And yes, I want it done in that goddamn order.

Re:MySpace To Be Made Safer For Users

[hunterx11]

Step 5 really is ???, because I have no idea how they're going to profit after they kick out all of their users with steps 1-4.

Re:MySpace To Be Made Safer For Users

[maxwell demon]

Step 2. Deleting all profiles that use the word "like" more than twice

You mean, profiles like: "I like programming very much, esp. with languages like Lisp and Scheme"?

Re:MySpace To Be Made Safer For Users

[tarth]

Especially the site administrators...

Sorry! An unexpected error has occurred.

This error has been forwarded to MySpace's technical group.

Re:What it is with this Administration and Czars?

[gEvil (beta)]

What's next? Overlords?

Well, at least they'll be welcomed.

new url

[solidtransient]

so... mysafespacewherenobadpeoplewillgetme.com then?

Good Candidate for Safety Czar

[Billosaur]

Dick Cheney

Re:Good Candidate for Safety Czar

[mogwai7]

Looks like he already is:

http://www.myspace.com/safetyczar

Re:responsible design

[grub]

I recently changed how my site dishes out most pictures with PHP. Picture thieves (or those with broken referrers) get a nice view of goatse guy.

Re:responsible design

[PFI_Optix]

Reminds me of when a popular forum meme got hotlinked off the creator's server a while back. The myspace kiddies posted it and posted it and posted it, and he let it go for a week...then replaced it with a random image grab from a directory full of goatse-esque images.

Suddenly myspace was flooded with them, mass bannings occurred, and we all had a great laugh.

Myspace needs to get their own image hosting that automatically parses hotlinks and caches them on the server...it would save their idi...umm...novice users a lot of grief.

What will he prevent?

[Milio]

So if the Drug Czar works to prevent drug use, and the Terrorism Czar works to prevent terrorism, what does the Safety Czar work to prevent?

Re:Parents

[dr_dank]

Kidnapping, rape, murder...no matter how many times it happens to people who do the exact same things they do,

and if Lifetime Original Movies are to be believed, those kidnappings, rapes, and/or murders are likely to be carried out by Judd Nelson.

Re:Parents

[Funkcikle]

THERE ARE BAD PEOPLE OUT THERE!

Ironically, running News Corp. But won't someone think of the children and the poetry they MUST publish? Insert trillions of anime-ish emoticons here showing the sadness.

Re:What it is with this Administration and Czars?

[vertinox]

What it is with this Administration and Czars?

Well the runners up were:

Lord Safety
Prince Safety
King Safety
Emperor of Safety
Der Safety Fuer
Il Safety Duce
People's Chairman of Safety
Premiere Safety
President Safety for Life

Michael Brown is your man!

[elrous0]

Not only did he do a heckuva job during Katrina, but I hear he's looking for work.

-Eric

Re:What do you mean exposing children to predators

[darkmeridian]

I use my myspace site to try to improve my co-worker's perception of me.

EMO KIDS

[Danzigism]

i'm personally just tired of emo kids.. the Myspace trend, just like New Wave and Hair Metal, will die out, and we'll look back and laugh at all the idiots showing off their stupid haircuts, and the guys that wear women's jeans with white studded belts..

I also think Myspace is like a Lazy Man's Blog.. creeps rather check out how their lady friends are "looking" instead of reading about how they're "doing".. just another source of anonymity for stalkers.. screw SpySpace..