MA Attorney General Seeks Myspace Changes

kaufmanmoore writes "Massachusetts' Attorney General Tom Reilly is saying that Myspace is not doing enough to protect children from sexual predators and is calling for action. The biggest proposal is to change the minimum age from 14 to 18 with an age verification system, but also to respond to all reports of inappropriate content within 24 hours and significantly raise the number of staff who review images and content." From the article: "The arrest Tuesday of a 27-year-old man in Connecticut on charges of illegal sexual contact with a 13-year-old girl he met through MySpace underlines the risks of the fast-growing Internet site that boasts about 60 million members."

Comments

Re:Raise your own kids!

[NtroP]

I've got a teenage daughter (17) who's had a MySpace account for a long time now. I monitor it as best I can (along with all her internet activity) and keep myself involved in her life. She spends a lot more time on MySpace than I'd prefer, but I've not seen any particularly disagreeable interaction take place on her site. Some of her "friends" are older than I'd let her date and make remarks to her online that they'd never do in my hearing (and live to tell about it), but that's part of growing up and learning to deal with it "one step removed" like this seems alright to me. I did see one user attempt to get her to sneek out of the house one night to meet him, but she obviously knew him personally and handled it correctly ("No way. My Dad will kill me if I get caught - and then he'd kill you!").

I know she'd be crushed if it was taken away from her until she was 18. It's one "social" activity she is involved in where I don't have to worry about her getting involved with drinking or drugs or worse...

Protecting my child is my responsibility as a parent - not the State's - and not MySpace. That being said, if I, as a parent, contact MySpace with a concern about my daughter's account they'd better damn well sit up and take notice!

Re:If you're wondering...

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

And here's his campaign website, oozing sanctimony about protecting the children.

Meanwhile, here's what he does when two minors are killed in a car crash