Teen Sues MySpace Over Sexual Assault

kaufmanmoore writes "A 14-year old is suing myspace for $30 million claiming the site failed to protect her from a 19-year old she met through the site. The suit claims that MySpace doesn't verify a user's identity or age and doesn't do enough to protect users."

Comments

What they need.

[OverlordQ]

Dont they have an "Complete Moron" clause somewhere that says idiots cant sue for being terminally stupid.

Re:What they need.

[HugePedlar]

Or even a "parental responsibility" clause. Why did her parents allow her to meet a total stranger without supervision? And why does Myspace have any more responsibility than ANY other community-based website or bulletin board?

Re:What they need.

[jmv]

I'm afraid it's a little more complicated than that. Unlike 10-15 years ago, at least half of people with Internet access would probably fall into your definition of "complete moron" (and remember that you're probably a complete moron about at least one thing). At some point, "something" will have to be done because "bad guys" tend to learn/adapt faster than "complete morons". Should the solution be to make sites responsible (I hope not)? Have an "Internet license" (with a test required like for a driver's license? I've no idea what form it will have and I hope it won't do more damage than it causes, but eventually things will have to change. I guess teens in the ~12-16 range are especially vulnerable because:
1) You can't monitor everything they do on the Internet anymore
2) There's still a lot of things they don't know (but should)
3) They think they know enough

Re:What they need.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, this guy online said he was going to do me in the butt and then he did me in the butt. someone owes me 30 million.

Re:What they need.

[jintxo]

For that matter, they could have hooked up over the phone or whatever other means you can think of (so all of a sudden ATT or whomever would have to verify age/identity of caller???). I don't really think Myspace has anything to do with this.

Cedric

Re:What they need.

[RobotRunAmok]

And why does Myspace have any more responsibility than ANY other community-based website or bulletin board?

Right. Beacause community-based websites and bulletin boards have been around for such a long time, and there are so-o-o-o-o many legal challenges and precedents in that space.

Face it: The MySpace cesspool is in danger of leaking out and poisoning the well of community-based boards everywhere; the pure, crystal clear waters of SlashDot and its ilk are not going to have a cleansing effect, legal or otherwise, on MySpace.

I am seeing activism on the grass roots level against MySpace like I haven't seen since the early 90's (the kind of awareness that laid the groundwork for all the online child protection legislation). If the "good" community spaces are smart, they will toss MySpace out into the snow with extreme prejudice then circle the wagons before the Clintons and the Liebermans and all the other politicos up for re-election start painting them with the same brush they are currently tarring-up for MySpace.

Right or Wrong, there is a BIG RECKONING coming, and it WILL be impacting business models throughout the 'Net.

My Prediction, based on historical precedent? MySpace goes the way of GeoCities (socially un-cool and retro), and the kids all start gravitating to their own (and de-centralized) unique TLDs, just like their neo-adult blogging counterparts.

Re:What they need.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not about the internet. No internet knowledge is required to avoid a situation like this. The girl didn't get assaulted over the internet, she went on a date with the guy IN REAL LIFE. Only knowledge needed is real life knowledge like "don't go out with a stranger", "don't trust a stranger" and "make sure there's always someone else around who can help you, unless you're strong enough to handle the situation yourself. The last one isn't even children-specific, everyone should know that.

Re:What they need.

[uglyduckling]

You can't monitor everything they do on the Internet anymore

Yes... you can. Seriously, I really don't buy this. It's part of a growing idea (certainly in Britain) that it's impossible to parent properly and monitor what children get up to, and it's an absolute myth. Up until the age of about 11 or 12 children should have no guaranteed privacy in terms of what they say and do, and if they've been used to loving oversight for all of their lives they won't have a problem with this. Sure, they can have conversations with their friends, but parents should be aware of what's going on and step in if something isn't right.

They should be gradually introduced to having independent passtimes and activities - like a Scout group or sports team - but understand that they are supervised by the adult that's in charge there. Only when they're entering their teens should they start to do any activities really on their own, and to begin with they should be clearly definined things like meeting some friends for a milkshake and then picked up again in the car. By the time they hit mid-teens they should be responsible enough to go and do things without running everything past mom and dad, but always know that they can come and talk about any problems.

The idea that a 14 year-old girl can meet a 19 year-old man without parents being aware until afterwards should raise questions about the parents' responsibility (neglect is a form of child abuse, although I don't know enough details to allege that in this case).

Where does the Internet fit into this? Web usage should follow the same pattern: a 14 year-old saying "I'm using the Internet" is even less specific than saying "I'm going to the mall" - in both cases the answer should be "no you're not". If they say "I'm just messaging Jane" then 20 minutes later they should be asked "are you still messaging Jane - why not invite her over for dinner if you're talking for so long?" If they're researching something for school then that's what they should stick to. Social time on the 'net should be limited and checked. If they abuse trust and lie about what they're doing then it should be withdrawn for a period of time.

This may sound terribly draconian but I think it's the only way to bring up children safely and with an understanding of what's right and safe and what's wrong and dangerous. I spent hours on the computer alone as a child, but we didn't have a modem and my parents knew what software was there. I also spent hours in the street playing with friends, but my parents knew every other parent on the street and it was a quiet cul-de-sac. Things have changed now, and it's not safe to let children play outside alone, and neither is it safe for them to play on the Internet alone. If parents aren't available to supervise then the children can't play in the street; if they can't supervise the 'net then it should be unplugged or password protected until they can.

Re:What they need.

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

And why does Myspace have any more responsibility than ANY other community-based website or bulletin board?

Because they have more money to sue for.

Re:What they need.

[ameoba]

If I (hypothetically) were a minor and committed a major act of vandalism or property crime, my parents would be held liable for the damages because, as a minor, they are responsible for my actions. If, as a minor, I manage to get a credit card by forging my parent's permission and run up a large number of purchases & fail to pay them, my parents would be held liable. If I commit fraud, agree to a EULA that asserts that I am of a given age, why are they no longer responsible for my actions?

This is exactly the kind of story that should be covered in an afterschool special. If the family wants money, sell the story, to hell with the courts.

Personally, I think the family should be told to stuff it and she should be made an example of by the media as the stupid little slut she is. These stupid little girls need to be told, harshly, that trying to manipulate scuzzy guys with sex can very well get them hurt (or even killed). Instead, whenever it happens, the girls are never at fault and are always "good girls" who were unfairly victimized and could never do anything wrong - regardless of how trashy & loose they were.

A great example is this highschool girl from my hometown - she was dating a 30ish drug dealer several cities away for some time. As girls her age are prone to do, she grew tired of him and decided to break up with him. As they are also prone to do, they are petty & vindictive towards ex-boyfriends, and threatened to turn him in. As bigtime drugdealers are prone to do, he kidnapped her, beat her & eventually executed her, burying her body in a shallow grave in the mountains. Media response? Obviously she was pure, innocent & unfairly victimized by a complete monster. Not that she could -ever- have any idea that bad things could happen to her for sleeping with a man twice her age in exchange for meth...

Re:What they need.

[KiloByte]

$0.01 would be grossly outlandish, too.

Re:What they need.

[AGMW]

it's not safe to let children play outside alone

I'd say I agree with pretty much everything you say, but ...

I really don't think it's any less safe for kids to play outside than it used to be. Incidents (a very non-specific term for the unpleasent events that do occur) are far more widely reported these days, and mostly, I fear, because it sells newspapers. The news reporting seems to be trying to scare the population into becoming hermits. If you don't lock your doors, arm yourself (esp. in the US), wrap your kids in cotton wool, and buy tomorrow's newspaper (!) you won't be safe!

Most of the problem of stupid teenagers is because they haven't been able to learn from their mistakes earlier in life because they are simply not allowed to take risks. It must be tough to let your kids out of your sight when you hear all the truely awful stories of what "sometimes" happens, but the children are missing out on part of their development and this is what makes them think it's OK for them to wander off with a 19 year old when they are 13 or 14. If they'd had some exposure to the real world when they were 8, 9, 10 they'd more than likely realise that there's something suspicious about a 19 year old wanting to spend time with a 13 or 14 year old!

Re:What they need.

[flumps]

Up until the age of about 11 or 12 children should have no guaranteed privacy in terms of what they say and do, and if they've been used to loving oversight for all of their lives they won't have a problem with this.

Man it's Nazis like you that take a childs trust and piss all over it - I don't care if you are dressing it up in nicey nicey language and giving a couple of half-assed exceptions to your draconian behavior. I give my child the privacy he wants, he respects me and listens to what I say and then he does it too.

I warn him of the consequence, which is all I can do, and if he fucks up then its his fault. He knows he can talk to me if he does, he can talk to me about anything. I'm not going to start taking that freedom away and locking up his television/computer/bike when I dont think its right for him.

Thats called LEARNING. You cannot cotton ball children, or chain them up and make them do what you want. They will just end up resenting you and then before you know it (because they won't tell you) they will be hooked up with some druggy taking herion.

The next thing you'll know, mr/miss, is they're face'll be on the news found dead somewhere.

Good luck, you're going to need it.

Re:What they need.

[jmv]

Up until the age of about 11 or 12 children should have no guaranteed privacy in terms of what they say and do...

I suppose you read the part of my post that mentioned the 12-16 range, right? Starting around 12 yo, you can't just check everything they do.

This may sound terribly draconian but I think it's the only way to bring up children safely and with an understanding of what's right and safe and what's wrong and dangerous.

You don't have kids, do you?

Re:What they need.

[aronc]

His point isn't that she deserved it. It's that by painting her as a pure innocent and glossing over the fact that she was engaging in some obviously stupid and dangerous behavior does a disservice to the rest of the community. Incident like that should scream to the rest of the kids in the community that hanging out with that kinda of person and that kind of lifestyle can get you hurt or killed. Instead the news/family paints it as a nearly random kidnapping more often than not.

Re:What they need.

[jbreckman]

Yeah, but MySpace is no less safe than meeting in a chat room or on AIM - it's just that MySpace gives the users the opportunity to fill out an age field. On AIM, he would have had to lie himself. I don't see why that distiction would cause MySpace to have more responsibility than a normal chat room.

Re:What they need.

[PhraudulentOne]

How about talking to someone in person? Does that allow you to hide your age? She says MySpace should have protected her by age verification, etc. SHE MET THE GUY FACE TO FACE. She then wen't out with him, had dinner, etc. So, she is suing MySpace for not verifying age, yet she couldn't verify his age herself, MEETING FACE TO FACE. How is this the fault of MySpace again?

    If they meet on MySpace, that's one thing, but if they want to go and meet in person, no website in the world is responsible for that.

Re:What they need.

[uglyduckling]

Man it's Nazis like you that take a childs trust and piss all over it - I don't care if you are dressing it up in nicey nicey language and giving a couple of half-assed exceptions to your draconian behavior. I give my child the privacy he wants, he respects me and listens to what I say and then he does it too.

But how did he learn that trust and respect in the first place? It doesn't happen by magic. Sure, children need to learn from mistakes, but those mistakes need to happen in a safe environment to start with so that the consequences are limited. When children are learning to walk we don't let them wander all over town and across busy streets - they're encouraged to try walking from one person to another in the home, and then outside holding an adults hand. Their freedom to walk without direct involvement of an adult is gradually increased, and if a worrying trend develops their their freedom is reined back a little, for instance if they keep wandering into the road then they might be made to hold hands for the rest of that trip and that pattern repeated until they've learnt the lesson.

Social interactions are no different, children gradually build up an understanding of how the world works and how to recognise danger in social situations. They aren't born with an innate ability to understand the world that would flourish if only parents didn't hold them back (as you seem to suggest). I can see your point: over-protectiveness can be just as damaging as neglect, but it's about being appropriate to the child's level of development. The majority of (but clearly not absolutely all) 14 year-olds are not ready to move about in the adult world completely unsupervised, be it virtually via the Internet or physically, as this story clearly illustrates.

I warn him of the consequence, which is all I can do, and if he fucks up then its his fault.

Yes - but a responsible parent will ensure that the "fuck up" will not do serious damage to the mental or physical health of the child. In the case of this story the 'hands off' approach has been shown not to work - the mental and possibly physical heath of a minor has been seriously damaged through sexual assult that should not have been possible if appropriate supervision had been in place.

Re:What they need.

[Oersoep]

Don't you all think the mother is the one who made a problem out of it?

Here's a possibility:

I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't the first time the girl got layed. It's just that her mother found out this time and a teenage girl then does what works best: Play the victim role and accuse the neighbor/teacher/boyfriend/one night stand whatever really happened. I always have my doubts in cases like this. There ARE 14 year old sluts. There's no denying it. They get their tramp stamp tattooed when they're 12 and as soon as they have it they start showing it off in malls wearing hardly anything. And when the parents find out.... they can't handle their own failure and start victimizing their poor special girls.

I'm not saying pedophiles and assholes don't exist. They do and the law is the law. But who's fault it is when a kid ends up on someones dick remains to be seen. My guess is it's mostly the parents, the kid herself and the local school culture that are to blame. And of course the owner of the dick for not checking her ID.

And indeed sueing MySpace is like seuing the police for letting everything else happen on the public street "cause they didn't do enough to prevent it". Ridiculous.

Re:What they need.

[DrWho520]

It is funny you mention the phrase "afterschool special" and relate an anecdote about a high school peer. She was 14 and he was 19. Guess what? The same thing can and does happen at any high school in the United States. Freshman date Seniors because Freshman girls like the clout dating an upperclassman holds and Seniors date Freshman because they are naive and easy. This was happening decades before MySpace. Now, when Suzy Q comes home smelling of beer, cigarettes and cheap sex, she can blame MySpace. Now, parents no longer have to blame themselves, they can blame a corporation. Now, instead of teaching a valuable life lesson to their child, they teach their child to blame others for their problems and sue people.

Re:What they need.

[Moraelin]

"When i saw this i mean it like someone is responsible for their own mugging if they walk through a bad neighborhood at night."

Dude, noone is _responsible_ for their own mugging or their own rape, especially when the _only_ "fault" is being at that place at that time. It's not like someone went to the biggest gangster in the neighbourhood and started calling them names or anything even remotely resembling starting it. So blaming the victim or making them _responsible_ of their mis-fortune, when again all they've done was happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, strikes me as _absurd_ to the extreme.

You may call it poor foresight, maybe even bad judgment, but outright shifting the blame onto the victim is just surrealistic.

Also, as a guy, I feel insulted by being compared to a mugger in a bad neighbourhood. The implication that going to a guy's house is obviously (enough to deserve blaming the victim) gonna result in getting raped if you don't put out, is outright insulting to males as a whole.

And generally, I don't know in what geek fantasy world do you live, where that kind of an attitude towards women is normal, but rest assured that most males can understand such notions as "free will." Nothing "is expected of" anyone just because you gave them a meal and a cinema ticket. If you want to get laid, there's that "free will" again: you have to make them want to do that and/or get past their inhibitions. You're trying to win someone's _consent_, not buying a quick fuck at a brothel. Wining and dining them is a means of making yourself likeable enough to that end, not buying a non-refundable ticket for sex.

I can tell you that I've had classmates and such coming to my home, or me going over to theirs, and the notion didn't even enter my head that I have some obvious right to fuck them one way or another. Sure, I'd try to make some move, rarely it actually worked, most of the time it _didn't_ work (guess my being fairly nerdy didn't help either), but at no point was there an idea that they have some duty to put out, much less that failure to do so is punishable by rape.

So excuse me if I take it as an insult when I read no less than that coming to my place was comparable to going to get mugged at night in a bad neighbourhood.

And let's not even get into the whole aspect of doing it with a underage kid, in any form or shape.

"This lawsuit is rediculous becuase MySpace is where they met, not where the crime happened."

With that I can aggree, though. But again, that doesn't make the girl guilty of her own rape either.

Re:What they need.

[networkBoy]

The point is that you are responsible for your safety. As a parent you are also responsible for your kids safety.
If you leave your kids with a known pedophile you are guilty of willful endangerment irrespective whether anything happens. MySpace (as much as I think it's a worthless POS and should die) is not responsible for this. WTF was a 14 year old doing looking to meet a guy for anyway? And a Double WTF to the parents for not at least having the meeting supervised.

As a parent of two kids I will acknowledge that you can not watch your kids 100% of the time, but instilling basic self preservation and understanding of being in situations you can not control is something that should happen before a child is allowed to run free.

-nB

Re:What they need.

[AndersOSU]

It doesn't matter if it is the first time the girl got laid.

It doesn't matter if it was consensual. (It probably wasn't forced sex, or he'd be charged with rape, not sexual assault)

It doesn't matter if this would never have come to light had the mother not found out.

He's 19. She's 14. As you said the law is the law, and sexual assault is sexual assault.

He should be prosecuted - it is his fault he fooled around with a minor, and all accounts indicate that she said she was 14 on myspace.

Oh, and btw, suing myspace is ridiculous.

Re:What they need.

[cayenne8]

"$0.01 would be grossly outlandish, too."

I agree....what the hell happened to personal responsibility? And in this case...since she is a minor, it applies to her parents!!

Actually...I'd say the avg. 14 yr old today is more savvy than my generation and should know much better than this....as a young girl, you can't be that trusting of someone you just meet. Also, her parents should be keeping up with who her friends are and who she is meeting..especially from some online forum!

It isn't the websites fault nor responsibility to police behavior...they are just providing a communitcations forum.

People could be meeting by telephone, but, you wouldn't think of suing the phone company for not doing their part to screen people would you?

Re:What they need.

[vux984]

People could be meeting by telephone, but, you wouldn't think of suing the phone company for not doing their part to screen people would you?

Good point. The phone company is a common carrier and is not responsible for what people say and do with it.

Therefore she should sue her ISP, not MySpace. After all, her ISP is likely against net neutrality, implying that they do not wish to be a common carrier, and therefore are responsible for what happens over the connections they provide...and therefore are liable when bad things happen. ;)

Re:What they need.

[LWATCDR]

Did your mom have to work? Many mothers do. The other thing is not every child is the same. I really didn't get into much trouble when I was a teen. One of my sisters got into constant trouble while my other sister didn't get into hardly any.
Yea your mom knew who you where friends with but then you didn't have 600 "friends" from all over the world chatting with you on MySpace.
The world is a different place. With the Internet you have almost all the advantages of living in the biggest city in the world with the best libraries in the world. You also have the disadvantages of living in the biggest city in the world with the most adult book stores and peep shows in the world.
Think of the Internet as being like a great kids club with a great library located in a really bad red light district.

In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

Where money goes, lawsuits follow.

And right now, Myspace has a lotta money.

Wait what

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article:

MySpace says on a "Tips for Parents" page that users must be 14 or older. The Web site does nothing to verify the age of the user, such as requiring a driver's license or credit card number, Loewy said.

What kind of 14 year old kid has a credit card or a license?

Re:Wait what

[LiquidCoooled]

I believe the lawyer is trying to call for more security for the 16s on the site.


The lawsuit claims that the Web site does not require users to verify their age and calls the security measures aimed at preventing strangers from contacting users younger than 16 "utterly ineffective."


But the part of the article that really caught my eye was the following:


Lauren Gelman, associate director of the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, said she does not think MySpace is legally responsible for what happens away from its site.

"If you interact on MySpace, you are safe, but if a 13-year-old or 14-year-old goes out in person and meets someone she doesn't know, that is always an unsafe endeavor," Gelman said. "We need to teach our kids to be wary of strangers."


This lawsuit is just ambulance chasing.

Re:Wait what

[QueenOfSwords]

Yeah, it's ambulance chasing.

I am so annoyed with 'mom'. The girl is stupid, and she probably lied to her parents about where she was going, because teens do do that. In fact lets *hope* she lied, because if her mom okayed this without meeting the boy, she's negligent.

But I'm really annoyed with her parents. They failed in their duty of care here after the fact. The girl has had a nasty experience, and she will probably need counselling, but she is still healthy and alive. The perp is in jail. The parent's role now is to be there for her... and reinforce for her that *this is why* you don't go off with strange guys from MySpace. This is *why* when she's so young, she needs to clear her boyfriends with her folks. She might not have been alive to sue anybody.... she was very lucky.

But no. Ohnoes! MySpace! It was the bad innerweb people!

Agggh! *HeadGoBoom*

Re:Wait what

[lukas84]

Are you going to assume EVERYONE is your friend out there and rely on a 14 year old's education to figure it out?

Nobody should ever assume that "everyone" is your friend. You can be anything you want on the internet. Everything can be spoofed. Theres no way to be secure about anything (There are some exceptions to this, but they don't apply here).
A 14 year old can have the education to be wary of what they read. That needs eduction though.

And if you have kids on there, and pedophiles as well, wouldn't you want to keep them apart?

Yes, but you also have kids and pedophiles in the same, real world. With the only difference that on the internet, a pedophile can't harm you. In the real world, he can.

It needs a 18 and under safeheaven where they screen things.

Dammit. And people over 18 just get the education about issues such as this from where?
Kids need to learn to! If you can read and write on a computer, you should be able to know that ANYONE can write ANYTHING on the internet.

Screening myspace won't help here at all. Nothing helps here. People need education.

Re:Wait what

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but parents do. It would be a good idea for MySpace to be set up in such a way that anyone under 18 needs to have some sort of screening.

That's called "parents" where I come from.

"In May, after a series of emails and phone calls"

[HugePedlar]

I didn't know Myspace was a pre-requisite for the exchange of emails and phone calls, nor that the going rate for "facilitating" rape was thirty fucking million dollars.

mooches mooches

[filthy_mcnasty]

As much as I detest Myspace and would absolutely love to see them go down.... this is just another frivilous lawsuit with someone trying to play the scapegoat game. Encountering a sexual predator on Myspace is no different than any other million sites where this could have happened but if it weren't for the deep pockets myspace has generated there would be no lawsuit. The users of sites like these (and hell, users of anything in general!!!) are still responsible for THEIR OWN actions and while I'm sorry that she was victimized, this young girl (or rather, her lawyers / parents) is now trying to create another victim. Give me a break, accept responsibility for your own actions. This isn't because "Myspace didn't protect me"

Re:mooches mooches

[solarbob]

If she found the same info in the lonley hearts in the newspaper would she sue that paper? Of course not as they would take her to the cleaners by exposing her on the front page (well the british papers would). What about if you met someone in a nighyclub and same thing happened...

Getting justice twice?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't she already get justice by having the 19-year-old jailed?

Re:Getting justice twice?

[bitt3n]

Doesn't she already get justice by having the 19-year-old jailed?

As Marcus Aurelius once observed, "A man cannot gold-plate his Ferrari with justice alone."

Re:Getting justice twice?

[anaesthetica]

Yes, but she doesn't get rich from justice. That's where MySpace comes in...

i'm conflicted

[circletimessquare]

on the one hand, personal responsibility, and responsibility of the parents, surrenders: bad thing

on the other hand, this could destroy myspace: good thing

Re:i'm conflicted

[dalutong]

on the other hand, this could destroy myspace: good thing

Thank you. I don't know why people seem to like myspace so much. The few sites on myspace I've ever seen are some of the ugliest, 1997 geocities-type, sites I've ever seen. What do people see in myspace?

Hi..

[hyfe]

Hi, your honour.

I am stupid. Please make them give me money.

yay

[slashdotnickname]

As an 18 year old big-breasted girl myself, I can totally relate.

Re:yay

[HugePedlar]

Relate to whom? None of us here. ;)

Re:yay

[MartinJW]

Want to meet up down at the mall?

Re:yay

[cynical kane]

I'll relate to her.

Guess what?

[Mancat]

You are not entitled to money for being stupid and immature. You should not be meeting STRANGERS over the internet, where nothing is ever as it seems, and most people lie about their most basic personal traits.

How can they?

[GFLPraxis]

The lawsuit is just plain stupid. I simply don't understand HOW someone can 'verify' their age over the computer. Short of requiring everyone to scan some sort of documentation of their age and requiring MySpace to hire a staff of thousands more people to daily comb through each user one by one as they register (simply not practical), there is no possible way MySpace (or ANY site on the internet that doesn't require a credit card for that matter) can verify it. They're basicly sueing MySpace for not doing the impossible.

Re:How can they?

[Ron Bennett]

Many minors have credit cards; they alone can't be used to verify age ... furthermore, the major credit card companies make clear that credit cards are NOT to be used for age verification purposes.

Verifying age solely on-line is darn near impossible ...

A possible, but expensive, way MySpace could reliably verify age of new users is to open staffed registration centers (could be small staffed kiosks in malls, superstores, etc) throughout the U.S. and other various countries, in which new users would appear in person with a government photo ID / birth certificate, etc in hand along with a parent / guardian, if under the age of majority (gets a bit tricky, since "majority" can defined as something other than 18 in some jurisdictions; age 21 often works when in doubt)...

Bottom line is that verifying age solely on-line is a near impossibility - to do so reliably requires some form of off-line verification procedure, which will require much resources and money to do ...

A simplier answer is for parents to take responsibility and be more aware of what their children do; educate kids so they make smarter, more informed choices about how they conduct themselves.

Ron

Re:How can they?

[EndlessNameless]

MySpace was told to require credit card verification by no one who had any authority over them.

If there was a law regarding identity verification that they failed to follow, then and only then are they at fault.

Suppose this girl got dropped off at the mall to hang out with some friends, and she met this guy there. Should we sue the mall for its role in the situation? How is the mall doing anything differently from what MySpace does?

Parents should teach their children not to run off alone with strangers, particularly older ones. The responsibility is shared between the guy for being a worthless piece of scum, the girl for being stupid, and her parents for not teaching her any better. If anyone should be sued, it is the guy... you know, the one who actually acted with malicious intent.

But wait, he probably doesn't have any money, and that's what this is all about.

Re:How can they?

[Opportunist]

There's a business idea in there somewhere...

Re:How can they?

[ZeroExistenZ]

Verifying age solely on-line is darn near impossible ...

eID. Nearly every Belgian has one.
Just pop it into your cardreader, enter your PIN-code and your age is verified.
Oh it also has digital signing and other neat gizmo's :)

Re:How can they?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, being 29 without any kind of credit card, I wouldn't be old enough? And even if I had one, I wouldn't give them my credit card number unless I was going to *buy* something. You know, that's what credit cards are for...

Re:How can they?

[Anonymous Writer]

... that will soon be patented

Re:How can they?

[Jeom2]

Bottom line is. Will efficient age verification process protect anyone from being assaulted? Any girl could be raped by a bloke her own age for all I know. Further more it (efficient age verification) would give a false feeling of security and trust. Online Dating? not an easy problem at all.

Re:How can they?

[GoblinKiller]

In Sweden we can also get a similiar e-id and use it when we're in contact with the government for example. Also every new european identity card comes along with a pin-code - maybe something that can be used online? Another idea would be an ability conduct easy and fast blood tests at home which could be checked towards a national database over the population by a website and in that way determine the identity of a person. No matter what it need to be a trusted instance that conducts all of these identifications because the same minute that I give away something at the internet that can be used to identify me others will also be able to be identified as me. It's like having your fingerprint shared on the internet and that's a problem in itself - nothing and no one can be trusted on the internet. There needs to be a secure connection between real life and the internet.

Re:How can they?

[houghi]

A possible, but expensive, way MySpace could reliably verify age of new users is to open staffed registration centers

You mean something like the way that minors can't get alcohol in the US?

Re:How can they?

[houghi]

Oh and for you people who are afraid of what this card can do and everything should be avaialable for everybody and this is so 1984: The source and some Dutch and French info.

SUSE has it as an eID-belgium RPM:

Summary : Software for belgian eID card
Description :
This PKCS11 library can be used for cryptographic operations with the
Belgian electronic identity card. For example, you could use it to
authenticate yourself (e.g. on a web site) or for signing electronic
documents with a legally binding signature.
Distribution: SUSE LINUX 10.0 (i586)

Re:How can they?

[houghi]

Parents should teach their children not to run off alone with strangers, particularly older ones.

The sad thing is that the majority of sexual harassments are not done by strangers, but by relatives and family.

That does not mean that strangers won't do such bad things. It is just that the focuspoint should be on preventing child abuse and sexual harassment in general, not just those that are done by strangers.

Re:How can they?

[OverflowingBitBucket]

Guy gets all the troubles.

As well he should. The 19-year old invited a 14-year old back to his place with the intent of having sex with her. Is there something else I'm missing in this picture?

Yes, he did something which was wrong by US law. This would've been legal in other countries, like Spain for example.

Then perhaps if he wants to pull this sort of crap he should head off there first. A 14-year old sleeping with a 14-year old is extremely regrettable. A 19-year old should have known better.

Re:How can they?

[tacocat]

For the sake of humanity she really must lose the lawsuit.

The internet is a wonderful social tool. It brings people closer. Including the people you don't want to be close to. Once upon a time in order to find a variety of people I had to travel many miles from my parents suburban home to find such culture and people. Today I can find all the culture I can stand in about 30 seconds and three clicks. Good and Bad people abound both on the internet and off. There are things such as "dark alleys" on the internet too. And just like it's the responsibility of the parents to keep our 14 year old daughters from roaming alleys and talking to predatory individuals, it's also our responsibility to keep them off the alleys and steer them away from certain areas on the internet. Where was Mom and Dad when the minor went on a date with a 19 year old? MySpace is not a surrogate parent or baby sitter and makes no claims to be.

Re:How can they?

[geminidomino]

I like the assumption that it was the guy who lied about his age... Nowhere in TFA does it mention which side gave the bogus info. Was he a pedo claming to be 15, or was she being a typical teenage girl claiming to be older than she is?

Re:How can they?

[stanmann]

Ok, Here's what I got from the story, Slightly precocious 14 year old freshman female meets Somewhat Non-precocious(being generous here) 19 year old Senior online instead of in the cafeteria or study hall, goes to dinner, a movie, and his place and does what seniors and freshman do. Buyers remorse Blah Blah Blah.

happens all the time, in every school, in every city. The only difference in this case was she met him on myspace instead of "at the library". It sucks to be him, but its not the schools fault and its not myspace's fault.

Re:How can they?

[Nikker]

Whats to stop someone from just plain lying? "This is my *brothers* account hes 19, I'm really 14...."

It is very simple, there is no verification of anything on the net. This is like searching around for some metric to judge evreyone else, it not only won't work it can't work. We will hear things like, "she said she had an athletic build ... I was mislead" and "he didn't say he was pastey white and lived in his mom's basement".

The truth of the matter is you cannot verrify someone over the internet using the same methods we use in person, it really is a diffrent thing. Both parties/people are comfortable in their anonimity and feel free to bs all the things they know they could'nt in person. It's like trying to repetedly fit the square peg into a round hole, we just have to find a method of explaination or understanding that will make people realize this.

Re:How can they?

[geminidomino]

I haven't discounted that possibility either. The sad part is, it doesn't matter. As the comments here, by the supposedly "intelligent" cross-section of society, show, there is no way this guy is going to get a fair judgement.

She consented? No good, she's under 16, she's too stupid to make that decision. That capability doesn't magically appear until the day of her 16th birthday.
She lied about her age? Tough. He should have checked her ID.
He tried to break it off when he found out the truth and the whole "sexual assault" thing is typical teenage girl petty revenge? Well, sucks to be him.

Lots of possibilities here besides the simple "the guy is a sick pedo." But no one will consider any. He's better off just hanging himself in his jail cell right now. Even if by some miracle he's innocent and aquitted of wrongdoing, he's already been judged.

Re:How can they?

[One Childish N00b]

Worthless piece of scum? Dude, you realise this is the mother of the 14-year-old suing, and not the 14-year-old?

The 14-year-old in all reality probably consented to whatever went on - maybe it's different across the pond but here in the UK pretty much ever girl, from thirteen and up, wants a 18+ boyfriend with a car and fat wallet - yeah, the guys are wrong for going along with it, but it's hardly 'worthless piece of scum' time - girls of that age are more likely to want a boyfriend of 19 than one of their own age (for the record, my girlfriend is 18, as am I).

If you let someone take you out on a date, and then go back to their place, you are obviously not being forced against your will to do those things - the girl spent many hours talking to this boy, via emails, phone calls, etc, and I'd bet you any money you like 'cybering' of some sort was involved, from both sides - I really doubt this guy sprang this on her after pretending to innocently take her out to dinner and a movie... but hey, one overzealous soccer mom finds out her underage daughter made out with a guy of 19 and it becomes 'sexual assault'. The article mentions a 27-year-old assaulting a 13-year-old, yeah, that guy's a 'worthless piece of scum' as I'm betting he lied about a lot more than one year and it was a lot less consentual, but this? This is just a teenage girl wanting an older boyfriend, her mom finding out and going apeshit, with the nice added bonus that if she keeps going apeshit she might get $30m in her back pocket.

Parents of teen girls: Girls of that age are sexually aware. Most girls that age want a dude with a car. This means that given the oppertunity they will jump their bones. Don't like it? Watch your damn children! If I'd spent hours on the phone to strangers every day my parents would sure as hell know about it, and if I arranged to meet anyone I met on the internet, alone, my mum'd still kick my ass for being so stupid even now.

Re:How can they?

[YrWrstNtmr]

eID. Nearly every Belgian has one. Just pop it into your cardreader, enter your PIN-code and your age is verified.

That just verifies that someone behind the keyboard is in posession of the eID card of someone of a certain age. It does nothing to (and cannot possibly) verify that the fingers on the keyboard actually belong to face and identity on the card. The PIN helps, but still is not certain.

Re:How can they?

[curecollector]

A possible, but expensive, way MySpace could reliably verify age of new users is to open staffed registration centers

So instead of minors lurking around outside the liquor store, trying to get a grown-up to buy them a case of beer, there'll be grown-ups lurking around outside of the MySpace kiosk trying to get kids to get them an account? :)

Re:How can they?

[tyler_larson]

He was 19 years old. He told her, instead, that he was a high school senior. High school seniors are usually around 18 years old. So the 14-year-old girl went out with a guy she thought was around 18, but it turned out he was actually 19.

If only she had known ahead of time... Damn you MySpace! Damn you!

Re:How can they?

[kneeslasher]

Would that I had mod points for the parent.

Nobody seems to realise that this entire issue is only an issue because most European-descended industrialised societies have run out of targets to hate. Other nations? No, we pity them, give them aid, and invade them, but we can't hate them: they're too weak to hate. Other religions? No, can't do that either: it causes civil strife within a nation and Crusades and Holy Wars without. Other races? Can't do that either. At least not publicly.

So goshdarnit, whom can we hate, unreservedly, with all our hearts? Gentlemen, the answer is paedophiles. That's right, child molesters. They are the new witches of today and we all enjoy seeing them burn at the stake: they are the one "species" we can all feel superior to and not feel guilty about it.

I remember a case here in England where two men shared a jail cell and one of them castrated the other because he had been convicted of some kind of rape. You wouldn't believe the smug self-satisfaction the public greeted this news with. No one seemed to notice that we shouldn't be resorting to criminals to mete out rough "justice" to other criminals: society itself is responsible for that, but would prefer to be hypocritical.

If the guy didn't actually forcibly rape the girl, the parent is absolutely correct: he should kill himself right now, because even if by some miracle, the courts acquit him, society has already judged him guilty. He will never recover from this debacle, careerwise or in any other sense. He is a marked man.

Surely in societies where girls as young as 9 - 12 boast of sleeping with two different boys in a single night at Catholic camp (yes, it happens, and often), a slight change in perspective is needed. There is a clear difference between such wanton and consensual promiscuity and those who genuinely do not wish to engage in sexual activity, whom the law seeks to protect. Unfortunately, below the current age of consent, it becomes difficult to legally seperate the two, the issue being topical enough as it is. It often becomes a case of "my word against yours", where the female word is often given more weight.

Until we have some progress, the fellow in TFA, if he is innocent of true forced rape, will be screwed by the mob justice the public is dying to mete out to him.

Re:How can they?

[lawpoop]

That sounds nice if all the police are doing if giving you free rides when you are too drunk to get yourself home. However, what if the South Korea were taken over by a dictator like North Korea? the supreme leader has access to everyone's personal information. That kind of information is very handy when you want to crack down on political prisoners, and have political enemies 'disappear'.

Re:How can they?

[autophile]

And if you're too drunk to walk home yourself, which happens a lot in korea, police officers who find you can match your fingerprints up with the police station, according to your finger, and the finger's fingerprint pattern.

This public service announcement brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.

--Rob

Re:How can they?

[Danse]

However, what if the South Korea were taken over by a dictator like North Korea? the supreme leader has access to everyone's personal information. That kind of information is very handy when you want to crack down on political prisoners, and have political enemies 'disappear'.

Depends on what the information is. If it's just name, address, DOB kind of stuff, then it's probably not a problem. If they abuse this system (which I feel would inevitably happen here in the US) by tying in all sorts of other info, then you have problems.

Re:How can they?

[lawpoop]

"Depends on what the information is. If it's just name, address, DOB kind of stuff, then it's probably not a problem. "

What other information do you need? If you have the name and address, that's all you need to come in the middle of the night and arrest them. Are you talking about whatever additional information that the authorities might need to decide that you are an enemy of the state? Well, once you have a giant database of names and addresses, a fascist government simply needs regular police monitoring to discover political dissidents in order to start disappearing people.

People living in fear of the authorities will call in and report a controversial editorial writer or talking head. People have reputations as to who they are, what they do, and what they believe, so all you need to do is start asking questions as to who has said what. There you get a name, and that is all you need.

Re:How can they?

[Hatta]

As well he should. The 19-year old invited a 14-year old back to his place with the intent of having sex with her. Is there something else I'm missing in this picture?

Oh no! Teenagers having sex! Won't somebody please think of the children!

Re:How can they?

[Sj0]

That would be fine, if young female culture didn't often take statutory rape -- that is, having sex with some 20 year old when you're 14 -- as some sort of bizzare badge of honour and something to be actively sought.

As long as we have mini-humans with mini-humanity, all such laws are unjust, as far as I'm concerned.

Re:How can they?

[Eskarel]

Might I point out that the only thing we know about what he did was that they didn't have sex, and we only know this because in the US if he had sex with her he'd be charged with rape and not sexual assault.

In the US sex with a minor is a statutory crime(hence statutory rape). This means that you are guilty of it merely by having been proven to have commited the act, there are no extenuating circumstances.

Therefor we know that he didn't have sex with her(or that she was consenting, is still consenting and won't testify against him). As he's not being charged with attempted rape we can probably even presume he didn't come very close to commiting said act.

Now we've got down to sexual assault, which can be pretty much anything from innapropriate touching, upward. That's probably very questionable behaviour, but not really all that unexpected on a date, particularly if they knew each other for a while.

All we really know in this case is that a 19 year old tried to date a 14 year old. While I personally think this is probably wrong, I also know that if he'd been 17 it would have been perfectly legal, even though she'd still be 14. She knew he was a high school senior on the football team(and it's not totally unheard of for guys on the football team to have been held back either for educational reasons or by parents who want them to have a size advantage), doesn't sound like too much of a lie to me. He didn't just abduct her off the street, and he seems(based on the levels of crime involved) to have let her go without too much of a fuss. So while he's probably a bit of an idiot, he's not exactly scum of the earth material.

Re:How can they?

[zariok]

Before you start throwing out "pedophile" as an excuse, perhaps you should know the defination. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedophile

# Over a period of at least 6 months, recurrent, intense sexually arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors involving sexual activity with a prepubescent child or children (generally age 13 years or younger). # The person has acted on these urges, or the sexual urges or fantasies cause marked distress or interpersonal difficulty. # The person is at least age 16 years and at least 5 years older than the child or children in Criterion A."

Per another poster, there are TONS of Seniors in HS that date Freshmen... the age could easily be 19 to 14/15. With schools teaching sexual education in 7th grade now, the girl is quite aware of intentions. Don't get me wrong, this does not excuse the boy if he actually forced himself on her.

Re:How can they?

[skiman1979]

That is a good point. There are a lot of possibilities here. If we don't have all the facts, we shouldn't be so quick to judge. The fact of the matter is, Myspace should not be sued because it is not their responsibility to verify users' ages before those users meet offline. This case is all about the money. Next thing we'll see is teenage girls (or guys) suing malls because they met their attacker there.

Re:How can they?

[Vinnie_333]

Also, the article doesn't say "rape". It says "sexual assault", which could be many things both heinous and relatively benign. In fact, use of the term sexual assault implies it was much less than rape. If they could have said rape, they probably would have since it makes a much stronger case. The behavior that got him in trouble could have been quite innocent in other cirmumstances or with another person.

Re:How can they?

[ultranova]

A 14-year old sleeping with a 14-year old is extremely regrettable.

Why ?

Re:How can they?

[LordNightwalker]

Man, you people are paranoid. WTH is wrong with a country requiring their citizens to carry an ID with them all the time? I've had mine since I was 12, and only *one* time did somebody require me to show it to them. That person was a cop, giving me a ticket for a traffic violation. It serves the same purpose as a drivers license: to allow the police to identify you when you commit a violation or a crime. The only reason he asked for my ID and not my drivers license was because I comitted the traffic violation by bike. If I were driving a car, he would have just asked for my drivers licence.

Other than that, the ID only leaves my wallet to show my dorky picture to friends. Now, what does it matter if the information is written on the thing, embedded in a chip, or both? None whatsoever. But hey, as soon as identities and electronics meet, armageddon must be near, right?

The positive benefits of an ID are stuff like ease of identification when I'm found dead, or badly hurt somewhere, so they can contact my immediate family; police knowing who I am when they arrest me for comitting a crime; age verification towards merchants who may not sell certain products to minors etc...

The downsides? I can only think of one: when the thing gets stolen, I'm required to report it and get a new one. That means paperwork and a couple of trips to city hall. Big fucking deal.

If you people actually took the time to educate yourselves about stuff you so religiously oppose, instead of following the herd and repeating the voice of the dumb masses, you might have noticed that the API is freely available, opensource implementations are already there, hence there is no bloody way the government can track you through it because nothing gets communicated to a central government server during any of your transactions. Otherwise it would bloody well show up in the API and opensource implementations and you can bet your ass it would be a huge scandal, and the whole eID deal would be dismissed faster than you can say "dog". The worst they could do is have the chip secretly log all transactions behind our backs, then datamine our returned IDs when they expire and we're supposed to exchange them for new ones. Yeah, 5 friggin' years later, they can finally get to my transaction logs. Whoopty-fucking-doo!

Maybe it's just 'coz most of you people live in the US... Living under a government that tested illicit drugs on their own troops to verify their validity as a weapon during the Vietnam era, that tested chemical warfare shit on their own soldiers during the gulf war, that constantly lies to their people to justify going to war (WMDs in Iraq anyone?) killing thousands of their citizens... Maybe all of that made you people a little paranoid and crazy in the head when it comes to trusting any government. But trust me; the worst shit that happens around here is some helicopter manufacturer paying some politicians to give them a positive evaluation when they're competing with another manufacturer to get this large government contract in, or politicians comitting fraud to line their own pockets and build luxury villas in a nice and quiet neighbourhood.

We Europeans value our privacy just as much as you yanks, the difference is we approach the privacy issue on a "think first, analyze the situation, then speak" basis, whereas you guys have more of a "shout fanatically as soon as anything even remotely applicable to our privacy gets mentioned" mentality. Fanatical shouting about stuff you don't understand doesn't make you seem more knowledgeable to anyone except your equally dumb peers who don't understand the stuff themselves, but have the same desire as you to belong to some "elite group of critical thinkers", although their thoughtprocesses could probably be surpassed by Lassie on a bad day.

Re:How can they?

[Belgand]

Dear $DIETY! We need to make certain that high schools are aware that they might be allowing 19 year-olds and 14 year-olds to interact! There must be some sort of way to prevent them from talking to each other every single day and perhaps, eventually, having sex.

Seriously, if he was 18 would that really have made any difference at all? Wouldn't he still be a bit sleazy (even if they had a real, loving relationship at that age 4 years makes a big difference) even if he hadn't sexually assaulted her. Knowing that she was 14 that would typically make her a freshman and a freshman dating a senior would be more or less accurate to the age range here.

Myspace is no more to blame than if she was sexually assaulted by an actual 19 year-old she met at school or any other public place if she met a guy there who claimed to be a senior.

Most tellingly though is that she went out with him and then he date-raped her. She apparently had no problem dating the guy or at least it was never mentioned that she did or that upon meeting him she realized that he was apparently older than someone she'd want to date (and hence, the issue in question since MySpace isn't an age-verification service). She should simply press charges for sexual assualt and be done with it.

Re:How can they?

[Kattana]

http://www.thecanadiangeek.ca/archives/in-defense- of-the-pedophile/
Relevant to this thread in particular and a very interesting read for anyone.
There is a real problem lately with everyone seeing everything in black and white, victims and pedophiles, terrorists and patriots, Us VS Them.

Re:How can they?

[man_ls]

A better idea would be to make the State driver's license databases accessible over XMLRPC or something.

Myspace sends an XMLRPC verify() request to the state's verification server, with an identification number. I had a state-issued ID number when I was 14 years old; anyone 15+ is very likely to have one via the Learner Driver's License. Anyone who doesn't...well, it's an incentive to go out and get one then, isn't it. Or the school district could verify ages the same way with a student ID (not an SSN).

Some type of system that works ilke Scan DL > Send DL to mainframe > DL returns information on the person.

In order to proffer a DL# to an electronic system, you have to have the physical card in front of you. Nobody in their right mind is going to remember a number that in FL is in the form of $-xxx-yyy-YY-zzz-n after all. The site compares the responses of the xmlrpc query to the provided information, and approves or denies the registration.

Or, to make it even more secure, why not directly send verify(DL#,criteria) and have the function return OK or GO AWAY depending on whether it matches. Do the comparison server-side, so the information stays in the relative security of the Government's systems.

I'm not opposed to positive ID verification...but if they do positively verify IDs, they need to remove the restrictions on who can view who's information. If everyone is legitimate, they have no business hiding the younger people from the general network.

Interesting world we live in

[Afty0r]

Where people can say things like "Your site doesn't make it hard enough for me to lie about how old I am" and "Some guy touched me in his car, I want money from a company that lets people engage in speech if they wish to, in the amount of two decades worth of average adult earnings."

Rule of law, Rule of man.... I always assumed Rule of Law was better - but now I'm beginning to wonder... the longer and further we walk down this path the worse it gets.

Re:Interesting world we live in

[caitsith01]

in the amount of two decades worth of average adult earnings

$30 million is two decades worth of average adult earnings to you?

See, this is why the US has problems with offshoring. I'll do the same job for only $20 million! And we're off on the slippery slope to an average adult only earning $10 million or so in two decades... disgraceful.

Wtf

[eddm]

I'm sorry, but MySpace are being expected to pay $30 Million to them for being idiots? I'll go hit myself on the head with a hammer and sue Black and Decker for supplying me with a weapon that gave me brain damage.

Re:Wtf

[plasmacutter]

This is a society of the irresponsible looking to point the blame at whoever they can.

They expect others to make their choices for them, and to do it correctly.. thus the reason for laws designed to make other people raise your kids for you (video game laws, TV censorship/ratings laws, movie ratings, etc).. and of course if these other people and companies do it wrong they are held liable because well.. it wasn't their fault for being "stupid"...they outsourced their decision making to you so you are now liable.

It sucks to be sure, but this is what an ignorant majority wanted, so this is what our society has produced.

Re:"In May, after a series of emails and phone cal

[Jetson]

I didn't know Myspace was a pre-requisite for the exchange of emails and phone calls, nor that the going rate for "facilitating" rape was thirty fucking million dollars.

Even if Myspace *was* a pre-requisite for email, the rape didn't occur on-line. She met someone on-line and then decided to follow-up with a personal get-together. Where was her mother when she was getting ready for her "date"? What kind of mother teaches a 14-year-old girl that it's OK to meet strange guys? Finally, what's to say that age-verification would have prevented the rape? Do they really think that she would have been totally safe if she was meeting a completely anonymous boy her own age?

Don't jump to conclusions

[Anonymous Coward]

It is very easy to say one thing or another about this person's character, how the lawsuit is rediculous, etc. and insert our own editorial commentary about the sanity of a woman who wants $30million after she hooked up with a MySpace liar.

However, just like The Mcdonald's coffee case where people screamed and shouted over the millions of dollars awarded to a woman who spilled hot coffee on herself, there is a lot more at issue here. In the coffee case, if you have read the facts of the case, you will probably agree that the award is not unreasonable. Does myspace have a history of sexual predators meeting others online? I think so. Does this make them culpable? Not necessarily. But just remember, it is not like this is a once-in-a-blue moon case that has never happened before on MySpace, and it is not like myspace is a happy, fun loving site full of real people (which is the image they like to project.)

Wait just a minute...

[Phroggy]

MySpace says on a "Tips for Parents" page that users must be 14 or older. The Web site does nothing to verify the age of the user, such as requiring a driver's license or credit card number, Loewy said.

Explain to me how verifying a 14-year-old's driver's license or credit card number is going to work.

Age verification is fine for sites that require you to be 18 or over, but if you want 14-year-olds to use your site, I can't think of a good way to verify their age that doesn't have really disturbing implications.

Solis contacted the girl through her MySpace Web site in April, telling her that he was a high school senior who played on the football team, according to the lawsuit.

In May, after a series of e-mails and phone calls, he picked her up at school, took her out to eat and to a movie, then drove her to an apartment complex parking lot in South Austin, where he sexually assaulted her, police said. He was arrested May 19.

If they talked to each other on the phone several times before meeting in person, why is AT&T not liable for failing to protect her?

Let me see if I understand this correctly: a 19-year-old claimed to be only 18 on his myspace profile, and this is worth $30 million?

I'm not excusing the guy's actions. He knew she was 14, and that's not OK, even if she said yes, which I'm guessing she probably did. And lying about your age is generally not cool. But I really don't think MySpace could have reasonably done anything that would have stopped this from happening. Do you think she wouldn't have agreed to meet him, if she had known he was really 19?

They started by sending e-mail, then exchanging phone numbers and talking on the phone; at what point do you draw the line and say what these people do is not MySpace's responsibility? If I find a (18+) girl on MySpace, send her e-mail, she e-mails me back, I send her my phone number, she calls me, we talk, we go out for coffee, things go well, we start dating, have dinner a few times, then one day we get into an argument and she punches me in the face - can I sue MySpace for failing to protect me from her?

Re:Wait just a minute...

[mpe]

Let me see if I understand this correctly: a 19-year-old claimed to be only 18 on his myspace profile, and this is worth $30 million?

Does MySpace generate an age from a user input date of birth or could he have written the profile when he was 18?
Also since this involves an alleged sexual assault why arn't the police involved...

Re:Wait just a minute...

[hyfe]

I'm not excusing the guy's actions. He knew she was 14, and that's not OK, even if she said yes, which I'm guessing she probably did

Seriously, assuming she had hit puberty, what's the problem? Most likely, he was much closer to her in maturity level than he was girls his own age.

This magical age limit thing is really bothering me.. especially since each country seems to have their own magical number. I can understand there needing to be a set agelevel as far as the law goes, because measuring maturity-level is pretty much impossible.. But we don't *need* to be as stupid when it comes what we deem moral. A childish 19 year old boy can be perfect match for a grown-up'ish 14 year old maturity-wise.

Re:Wait just a minute...

[Maelwryth]

"then one day we get into an argument and she punches me in the face - can I sue MySpace for failing to protect me from her" No, but when the cops turn up you would probably be arrested to protect the poor sobbing girl. Cynical aren't I.

Re:Wait just a minute...

[esper]

Yes, but just because there are circumstances where having sex with a minor could be deemed immoral does not make all similar circumstances immoral, either.

Next up: Teen sues the Internet

[__aaxwdb6741]

A 14-year old is suing the Internet for $30 billin, claiming that the technology failed to protect her from a 19-year old she met...
wait, screw this parody.

What the fuck is a 14-year kid old doing meeting a 19-year old she met om MySpace? I think she should sue her parents for not beating her enough.

Re:"In May, after a series of emails and phone cal

[Yvanhoe]

And I may add, it seems equally plausible that the 19 years old guy wasn't even aware he was talking with a minor. I am sure he could sue for another 30 millions...

Require retention of conversations for underage

[RapedByKateMorrow]

If teens must use myspace, teenspace, yourspace, funkyspace, pinkspace, lacyspace, or whatever, make the retention of their conversations a requirement. The prohibition of sex with minors, of voting for minors, of access to alcohol and porn to minors, are well founded. Minors are not known for adult reasoning skills. Adult parents are still in their lives for a very good reason: Adults (should be) more knowledgeable and responsible, and should be educating their kids. They should also be monitoring their kids. Give the parent the tools to monitor the chat and messaging behaviour of their kids. Fuck their privacy, or realize it's your fault as parent when they get fucked.

Re:Require retention of conversations for underage

[dbIII]

Give the parent the tools to monitor the chat and messaging behaviour of their kids

It is incredibly simple - put the PC in the living room and pay attention to what the children are doing. Blaming the victim is pointless but a couple of simple steps and a bit of parental reponsibility can stop a few future victims. Selling the net as a sanitised, safe environment is just as silly as doing the same thing with a bus terminal - no amount of placebo filtering programs or trying to software restrict to OMG Ponies sites is going to help.

Underpants Gnomes

[HenryKoren]

Phase 1: Sign up on myspace, lie about age
Phase 2: Fuck around with your boyfriend
Phase 3: Lawyer up and sue!
Phase 4: ???
Phase 5: 30 Million Dollars Profit.

Re:stupid girl

[RapedByKateMorrow]

This girl was also 14 years old (according to the article.) 14 year old girls are not known to be masters of logic. That's a large part of the reason why it's illegal to have sex with them.

Someone has to say it....

[kjart]

OMG, $30 million worth of ponies!!!111one

Sue /.

[Patrik_AKA_RedX]

I think I'm going to sue /. for not protecting me against wasting my time. That should be worth a few millions too, right?
And if that fails I could sue my laywer for not protecting me against sueing someone for rediculous reasons.

Re:"In May, after a series of emails and phone cal

[Pieroxy]

I am sure he could sue for another 30 millions
Sorry, but due to rampant inflation, the rate today is already $32 millions.
--
Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse

Teen *didn't* sue MySpace

[CaptainTux]

The teen didn't sue MySpace.com. Her mother did. Here's a link to the CNet story: http://news.com.com/2060-10802_3-0.html?tag=nefd.b l

Re:Teen *didn't* sue MySpace

[kjart]

From the article you linked (which is informative):

"MySpace is more concerned about making money than protecting children online," Adam Loewy, who is representing the girl and her mother in the lawsuit against MySpace, told the newspaper.

Sounds like the same could be said for her mother.

/cynical

Well they have a small paragraph in the terms...

[dlichterman]

from the myspace terms and conditions
====
Limitation on Liability. IN NO EVENT SHALL MYSPACE.COM BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANY THIRD PARTY FOR ANY INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOST PROFIT DAMAGES ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES, EVEN IF MYSPACE.COM HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. NOTWITHSTANDING ANYTHING TO THE CONTRARY CONTAINED HEREIN, MYSPACE.COM'S LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ANY CAUSE WHATSOEVER AND REGARDLESS OF THE FORM OF THE ACTION, WILL AT ALL TIMES BE LIMITED TO THE AMOUNT PAID, IF ANY, BY YOU TO MYSPACE.COM FOR THE SERVICES DURING THE TERM OF MEMBERSHIP.

Indemnity. You agree to indemnify and hold MySpace.com, its subsidiaries, and affiliates, and their respective officers, agents, partners and employees, harmless from any loss, liability, claim, or demand, including reasonable attorneys' fees, made by any third party due to or arising out of your use of the Services in violation of this Agreement and/or arising from a breach of this Agreement and/or any breach of your representations and warranties set forth above and/or if any Content that you post on the Website or through the Services causes MySpace.com to be liable to another.
====
http://www1.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=misc. terms

While we're making up numbers...

[nemik]

Way to go little girl!

Let's not forget though the other culprits in this crime:
ISP for providing internet access to enable MySpace to enable rape: sue for $16M
Dell/Sony/etc for manufacturing a computer that enabled internet access that enabled MySpace that enabled the raping: sue for $47M
Microsoft/Logitech for providing mouse and keyboard for enabling computer to enable internet to enable MySpace to enable rape: sue for $2.8M
Office Supply Co for providing desk/chair to sit on computer: sue for $4.7M
Electric Company for providing electrical current to run the rape-uter: sue for $5M

Granted I am not a lawyer, I'm sure they can be much more creative than this. :)

Re:the dumb do get the money...

[drb_chimaera]

Not this one again - I know this case is a standard-bearer for the insane lawsuits that come to pass in America but this one was actually not without merit - the coffee was served way too hot (180-odd degrees, which is unfit for consumption - it would burn the mouth) and McDonalds knew it was a problem - there were a *lot* of previous cases and the woman got third degree burns over some *very* sensitive areas.

Oh and the court case found her 1/5 responsible for what happened so was granted "only" 4/5 of the granted compensatory damages.

See now the one where a guy that broke into a house, managed to lock himself in the garage and had to spend two weeks subsisting on dog food and a couple of cans of fizzy drinks because the owners were on holiday and then sued that family for a lot of money - thats a better example :)

The law protecting the dumb and stupid

[Opportunist]

Remember the old times? When the law was supposed to protect the innocent? When the law's job was to make sure, as long as you act rational and normal, you can consider yourself safe from nutjobs?

That turned 180 degrees. Today, being stupid can be very profitable. Thus we get all those neat little "safety stickers" (you know, the "things look smaller in mirror" crap things) on EVERYTHING. In a perfect world, those stickers wouldn't exist and Darwin would be given a chance to prove his theory that whoever is too stupid to live will be eliminated from the gene pool. The stupid would die out and evolution would take over.

Suddenly Creationism (and its advocates) starts to make sense. Not as a theory, but just WHY they advocate it. I mean, would you like a theory that told you that you should've been eliminated centuries ago... anyway.

Our legal system is protecting those who're too stupid to live. Not every time, mind you, there are still very justified suits, but there's a lot of suits that reek like this one. I'm stupid, and it's someone else's fault that my being stupid and careless, and that I didn't think put me in an undesireable position.

It's convenient to blame someone else for our mistakes. And profitable! But as a bottom line, there are 3 people to blame:

The 19 year old, for he should DEFINITLY have known better.
The parents of the 14 year old, for they should have cared what their daughter is doing online.
The 14 year old, for not thinking what a 19 year old could have in mind.

Where I do blame most of the 14 year olds fault at her parents again. Why didn't they prepare her? They should have told her what a 19 year old wants from her, they should have told her that it's not a good idea to meet a random stranger online.

But that would have required to talk with her about (*eek*) sex! It's more convenient and less embarrassing to sue now.

And of course start a riot about how online media need to be doing the parent's job! I.e., watching what their kids do online.

How do we protect teens from their own ignorance?

[thephydes]

As a high school teacher and father of 4 children, I can assure you all that by 14 they have already started making their own decisions. How we protect them from their own ignorance is something that anyone who works with teens wonders every day. Unfortunately they possess a childs brain inside and (almost) adult body .......

Suing for stupidity

[99luftballon]

There really seems to be little legal case here. For years now therer's been information campaign after campaign about the safety aspects of meeting people you've met online in the offline world. She spent the whole afternoon with this guy and took him back to her place. If the assault is proven then her beef is with the attacker - you can't sue a friend for introducing you to someone who then assaults you. This has very little to do with online security and lots to do with the fact that MySpace is in the public eye and has money. Long live America, land of the lawsuit.

Maybe I'm old...

[NotInTheBox]

Why is a 14 year old allowed unsupervised access to the internet. I maybe getting old...

The internet is the greatest market place in the world. People go here for trade, conversation, news/gissip and inspiration. There are public spaces where you can make a fool of yourself and there are dark back alleys where other people can make a fool of you. This is a place where everyone is treated like a adult with no regard for your age.

How many parents would let their 14yr old children roam a big unknown city at night by themselves? How do children learn to recognize the good from the bad it their parents don't guide them?

When someone has a private party (myspace) and is inviting children to join in... what may be expected? What is posible to expect?

In this case, myspace had no way of knowing that this man could be treat to this girl. You can not assume that every 18+ male is a pervert. This relationship (if that's the word) developed mostly outside the control and supervision of myspace. I think that there is really nothing myspace could have done differently; except maybe, not to invite children to begin with.

Re:Maybe I'm old...

[cbhacking]

I think this case is idiotic, but it was fairly inevitable; MySpace does NOTHING to ensure users are of age except asking them. You could be 12 years old, register your real birth date minus 7 years, post some pics off the net -- even other MySpacer's pages -- that look 19, and call yourself ">>>XXX<<<"... None of the admins would know, even if they took the time to look specifically at your profile (having seen some profiles that, for example, blatantly disregard the restrictions on nudity in photos, I know full well that they don't). There really ISN'T any way to know. It's even easier for the 19-year-old to pretend to be a year or three younger... almost nobody gives their real birth year on there; indeed many use 99 years ago, as a sort of "I don't have to tell you!"

As for using the site unmonitored at 14, by 14 my sister and I were certainly trusted to use the Internet safely... but not to go meet people randomly, and I like to think my parents did something right in teaching common sense and practical safety precautions and were thus justified in our freedoms. The only girl I personally know who was sexually assaulted by somebody met on MySpace was 16, and effectively an orphan (her addict mother has no real part in her life). She, as opposed to this girl, has an excuse for not knowing the dangers of what she was doing.

Re:Maybe I'm old...

[tomjen]

You are getting old. A parent cant watch their child 24/7 - more over they should not because then the child will never learn to make his or her own decisions, and yes face the consquenses.

I blame the parents for not learning their child to think.

Personal responsibility R.I.P

[Irish-DnB]

It is with a great deal of sadness that we announce the death of personal responsibility.
Personal responsibility is survived by common sense.

Responsibility
begining of time -- 2006
R.I.P

What's in their heads?

[Jugalator]

"MySpace is more concerned about making money than protecting children online"

The children are protected online. Their problem is protection offline beyond the realms of a website. MySpace is not revealing personal data at another member's request through their website. The children are protected online to the best of MySpace's abilities. This girl wasn't abused on the web in a session of cybersex where MySpace provided a button to electrochute her.

How concerned her parents is on protecting her offline is a better question.

Obviously, they can do the basics as verifying personal data, and we have a similar site in Sweden that does exactly that, but abuse still happens, because believe it or not, there still exist plenty of jerks who don't mind providing their real information. Most probably get away with it too, by threatening the girl to not speak. In the end, your own mind is your most powerful weapon against "online predators".

"We feel that 1 percent of that is the bare minimum that they should compensate the girl for their failure to protect her online when they knew sexual predators were on that site," he said.

The major flaw in their argument is that she was fully protected online, as MySpace does not allow members to get actual address and user information at request. Their problem is that she was not protected offline, and who's to deal with that if not her friends and/or parents. Have your first date at your parents home and have a talk in your room to get to know each other better for christ sake, not his apartment or something. Get some friends and go to the movies and have a good time while you get to know him. It doesn't have to be all "OMG, let's go to your apartment on our first date and have sex". Especially if you're just 14.

Who's your daddy? NOT Tom...

[Cincan]

Sounds like a publicity stunt and frivolous style lawsuit to me. That's not to say that the alleged assult didn't happen. But last time I checked, it was up to parents to protect their kids from associating with strangers and potential predators...NOT websites.

The 14 year old willingly went out with this person...to dinner, then a movie. Why aren't the restaurant, movie theater and apartment complex (where the girl was allegedly assaulted) being sued as well? They weren't protecting this girl either. They aren't being held responsible, so what does MySpace have to do with the incident itself?

If an underaged girl meets some guy in public on the street and he manipulates her in whatever way, a lawsuit wouldn't be filed against the city...the responsible parties are the suspect, the girl, and her legal guardians. MySpace doesn't even begin to fit into any of these catgories.

If the Internet was fully regulated by the government and was subject to specific laws in which websites had a heavy responsiblity to police their users, then maybe this girl would have a valid argument/case. Otherwise, this is just another episode of "How Ignorant People Make Money Off of the Internet"

Re:Well they have a small paragraph in the terms..

[Red_Chaos1]

Unfortunately I do believe this agreement is null and void for anyone under the age of 18, perhaps except in whatever states may have clauses to the otherwise. Only "adults" are considered capable of entering into and being held liable by such a contract.

Gimme a Freakin' Braek!

[rhsjr7]

I don't care how old she is; Greed is still Greed!

Lets not Mince words here, she's a money grubbing little SLUT and so are her parents. Had they taught her anything about life they'd have told her that boys and men will want to get into her pants, period. It's not nice, but it is reality. If they had talked to her about this when she began puberty maybe none of this would have happened. If indeed she was sat down and had the birds and bees conversation; they would have told her she should have known better and it was her bed to lay in now, pun not entirely intended.

Parents these days don't take proper responsibility or teach their children anything when it comes to morals or self worth, or even taking the responsibility for your own actions. I cannot believe that there is any motive other than publicity and Money.

I've said my Piece\Peace
Richard H. Smith Jr.
rhsjr7

Re:"In May, after a series of emails and phone cal

[Saeger]

Sorry, but due to rampant inflation, the rate today is already $32 millions.

Sorry, but dollars are no longer accepted. The rate is now 1,683 bars of gold and 500 sex slaves.

Re:The Macdonalds 3rd-degree burn case had merit.

[rufireproof]

I worked at McD's when this went down. The reason coffee was 180 degrees was because people would get mad and throw it at the cashiers if it was colder. They reduced the temp by 5 degrees, and customers went balisic. Customers demanded hot coffee. It all boils down to the fact that you can't make anything idiot proof. The world is always making better idiots.

Hang on...

[OverflowingBitBucket]

If a 19 year old takes you to dinner and a movie and you agree to go back to his place certain things are expected of you

Whooooah there. Wait just one damn minute. You surely can't mean what I think you mean, do you? Please tell me I've misunderstood what you've said.

If you go around to someones place, they may or may not be hoping for something of a sexual nature to happen, but there is never, ever an expectation on someone to "put out" just because you went to visit. Yes, it is a fair assumption that someone who has just wined and dined you is going to try to put the moves on you, but merely visiting isn't consent to take things as far as they want. The visitor can soak up the dinner and movie, drop over, drink their coffee and eat their chips, and at the end of the evening get on up and go, and there's not a damn thing expected of them.

Having said that, I'd question the wisdom of heading back to a 19-year olds place after dinner and a movie because there's a good chance they've got something quite specific in mind. But bear in mind this is a 14-year old, and they don't always have the life experience to avoid making such a poor decision.

My reply to you would be far, far more vicious if I thought you genuinely meant what you've written. It just seems so far out that I'm hoping you chose your words poorly; please tell me that I've misread your actual intent.

Re:Hang on...

[Tim C]

I think perhaps that "expectation" doesn't mean what you think it means. "Expect" is simply a stronger form of "hope" - you "hope" for something when you'd like it, but you're not convinced it'll happen. You "expect" something when you're pretty certain it'll happen or know that it will.

Neither hoping for something nor expecting it means that the thing is in any way obliged to happen. That is, in this case, the 19 year old can *expect* the girl to put out after the things he's done, but she is in no way *obliged* to do so.

Change "expectation" in your post for "obligation" and you're spot on.

So, calm down, deep breaths, he didn't mean what you thought he meant :) (Unless he is similarly mistaken about what the word means, in which case go ahead, rip him a new one)

Re:Hang on...

[OverflowingBitBucket]

I think we agree that "expect" is a stronger form of "hope", just that we might not agree precisely on the strength. ;)

The phrase I latched onto specifically was "expected of you", rather than just "expected", which (IMHO) has a subtle but very different meaning. The relevant entry in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary is here. Specifically:

    to consider bound in duty or obligated

which gives meaning to the original phrase something as: "If a 19 year old takes you to dinner and a movie and you agree to go back to his place certain (sexual) things are expected of you (you are bound in duty to deliver these sexual things or obligated to deliver these sexual things)". Obviously there is big problem with this, hence why I hope the GP really didn't mean it like that.

Of course, if the GP really meant that, I wouldn't be the only one ripping them a new one, they'd be modded to oblivion, so forth. I don't think the GP has bad intent. I just think the choice of words is... unfortunate.

Re:Hang on...

[surprise_audit]

Never mind what might or might not be expected after dinner and a movie - my question is, what the hell were the girl's parents doing?? They let their minor child be picked up by someone they've never met, taken to dinner and a movie?? Someone needs to slap them upside the head for lousy parenting.

Re:Hang on...

[OverflowingBitBucket]

my question is, what the hell were the girl's parents doing?? They let their minor child be picked up by someone they've never met, taken to dinner and a movie?? Someone needs to slap them upside the head for lousy parenting.

It is quite possible the teen snuck out without her parents knowledge- not hard to do, teens have lied about where they are going since the dawn of time. But even this is an assumption; she may just have terrible parents. And greedy ones too, apparently, given their choice of Myspace as a target.

Re:Hang on...

[geekdoc]

Here's a fly-in-the-ointment of the entire lawsuit - did the 19-year-old lie about his age? If he is 19, and his MySpace page said he was 19, what would age verification do to prevent any of this?

Part of me *hopes* this is a setup by the parents, in light of the "Palestinian runaway" and with MySpace being in the news an awful lot lately. It would make me feel better to think that her parents were trying to perpetrate a fraud than being just that hideously stupid. If your daughter is 14, you meet the people she goes out with, whether platonic or romantic. No exceptions.

Re:Hang on...

[Tim C]

Looks like we have a difference in semantics then. I'm from the UK, and am assuming that you're from the US. Certainly, the dictionary I referenced is UK-based, while MW is US-based.

Here in the UK, I'd take "expected of you" to mean "someone is expecting something of you". Well, people can expect whatever they want, it doesn't mean that it's going to happen. Knowledge of that expectation may instill a feeling of obligation in the person concerned, but that's another matter entirely. In the context of the definition I referenced, the original phrase you quote would have a meaning of "If a 19 year old takes you to dinner and a movie and you agree to go back to his place certain (sexual) things are expected of you (the 19 year old hopes or believes that you will engage in these acts, but you are not necessarily obligated to do so)"

To my (UK) mind, an expectation is just a hope/belief, while an obligation is an expectation the non-fullfilment of which has consequences, including (as appropriate) the use of legal force to ensure the fullfilment and/or extract recompense for non-fulfilment.

Basically, me and the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary say that expectation is not the same as obligation. You and the Merriam-Webster dictionary disagree. It's a "two people separated by a common language" thing :)

Given that I also assume that the OP is American, I'll bow to your interpretation of his words, no matter how wrong it feels to me.

Re:Hang on...

[plague3106]

But bear in mind this is a 14-year old, and they don't always have the life experience to avoid making such a poor decision.

Believe it or not, 14 year olds can think, life experience or not. At 14 I certainly knew that people lied and that its not a good idea to off with a stranger who's face I never even saw.

In this particular case the girl was pretty stupid and there's no law against that. MySpace isn't liable because her parents (in all likelyhood) overprotected her to the point where she thinks the world is nothing but rose petals and puppy dogs.

Its amazing that when AOL was hot they were not responsible, even though I'm sure a lot of 14 year olds met others through IM and chat rooms.

Finally, I guess she does now have a 'life experience' from which she can learn, doesn't she?

Re:Hang on...

[cloak42]

Actually, I believe MySpace allows you to be a member at age 14. However, it marks all underage profiles as private (I think), so that only friends can see the information besides age, location and screen name (this includes additional pictures).

The problem is when an underage user misrepresents him- or herself by saying that they're older than they are; THIS is a violation of their rules.

This is why I don't understand how age verification would have solved anything to begin with, because it wouldn't have stopped her from being on the site. But regardless, they shouldn't be held accountable because she broke the rules, period.

Re:Hang on...

[OverflowingBitBucket]

Believe it or not, 14 year olds can think, life experience or not. At 14 I certainly knew that people lied and that its not a good idea to off with a stranger who's face I never even saw.

Don't fear, I'm absolutely not suggesting that. I've met my fair share of teenage kids who show a hell of a lot more wisdom than someone twice their age. I've had my rear legitimately handed to me enough times in online discussions by people who have turned out to be twelve to know not to underestimate the young ones. But a good number of kids that age do have a degree of naivety, and some girls that age may not have caught onto the sheer number of people who will say and do whatever they can to get into someones pants.

Finally, I guess she does now have a 'life experience' from which she can learn, doesn't she?

Yes, and it's sad that she had to learn this way.

Re:Hang on...

[nwbvt]

"The phrase I latched onto specifically was "expected of you", rather than just "expected", which (IMHO) has a subtle but very different meaning. The relevant entry in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary is here. Specifically:

to consider bound in duty or obligated

which gives meaning to the original phrase something as: "If a 19 year old takes you to dinner and a movie and you agree to go back to his place certain (sexual) things are expected of you (you are bound in duty to deliver these sexual things or obligated to deliver these sexual things)". Obviously there is big problem with this, hence why I hope the GP really didn't mean it like that."

You left out the word 'consider'. She is not in reality bound in duty, but its very possible (if not likely) that the 19 year old considers her in some way bound in duty. Expectations are not needed to be rooted in reality, in fact they are often not.

Re:Hang on...

[plague3106]

It is quite possible the teen snuck out without her parents knowledge- not hard to do, teens have lied about where they are going since the dawn of time. But even this is an assumption; she may just have terrible parents. And greedy ones too, apparently, given their choice of Myspace as a target.

The fact that teens sneak out does not mean that the parents aren't lousy. They're still responsible, and they're still lousy for letting their teen sneak out in the first place. More to the point they are lousy parents for forcing their kid to feel like they have to lie and / or sneak out to do the things they want. I didn't sneak out, because I knew I could go to my parents and tell them exactly where I was going.

Re:Hang on...

[bcattwoo]

According to TFA, the guy picked her up after school. She probably told her parents she had soccer practice or whatever. Also, the assault took place in an apartment complex parking lot, not actually in his apartment apparently. Perhaps she realized that she shouldn't go in with him and he got mad.

While I think that it is terrible that this girl was assaulted, I still think this lawsuit is BS though with the parents and girl both shirking their own resposibility in avoiding the situation.

Re:Hang on...

[OverflowingBitBucket]

The fact that teens sneak out does not mean that the parents aren't lousy. They're still responsible,

Absolutely.

and they're still lousy for letting their teen sneak out in the first place.

They may not have had a choice in the matter. It's not too hard to say you're going to an event with X, and get X to go out the same time as you elsewhere. I've seen it done, and I was X a few times as a kid myself. Not saying it's right, just saying it happens.

Alternatively, you're completely right.

More to the point they are lousy parents for forcing their kid to feel like they have to lie and / or sneak out to do the things they want.

Or the parents are fine and the kid is lousy or foolish. Or alternatively, again, you're completely right.

I didn't sneak out, because I knew I could go to my parents and tell them exactly where I was going.

Not all kids are good kids like you appear to have been nor have good parents like yours seem.

Re:Hang on...

[ElleyKitten]

I think the parents wanted myspace to verify their daughter's age, and then protect her from people they appearently can't. Myspace could have made her page private (which they do for those that say they're under 13) so she'd have to friend the sexual-assualting 19 year olds, they couldn't friend her first. Clearly that would be much more effective than them having a conversation with her. "Where are you going?" "Uh, uuhh, to Suzy's house?" "Why don't we drive you to Suzy's house?" Yeah, that wouldn't have worked at all. Myspace could have solved all of this by merely verifying her age, which she probably told them anyways.

Re:Hang on...

[AviLazar]

to consider bound in duty or obligated

"Consider"

This is a word that is based on opinion. "I consider that 19 year old to be an asshole". It is my opinion and nothing more. He may consider what he done to be ok. Highschool kid going out with highschool girl.

And as the post before yours said, expect is not obliged. He expected sex does not mean she was obliged to give it to him.

Re:Hang on...

[955301]

More to the point they are lousy parents for forcing their kid to feel like they have to lie and / or sneak out to do the things they want.

This can be chalked up to a lousy kid too. You pick your own friends when your young, and if you pick stupid peers and start doing stupid things against your parents wishes, that does not make them lousy.

Re:Hang on...

[plague3106]

Don't fear, I'm absolutely not suggesting that. I've met my fair share of teenage kids who show a hell of a lot more wisdom than someone twice their age. I've had my rear legitimately handed to me enough times in online discussions by people who have turned out to be twelve to know not to underestimate the young ones.

Well, sorry for lumping you into that group. I tend to jump the gun sometimes, because when I was that age, I promised myself that I wouldn't underestimate kids, like adults were doing to me at the time.

But a good number of kids that age do have a degree of naivety, and some girls that age may not have caught onto the sheer number of people who will say and do whatever they can to get into someones pants.

Well, that's partly their parents fault, after all.

Yes, and it's sad that she had to learn this way.

Its unfortunate, but I also see no other way of learning such life experiences.

Re:Hang on...

[Mr. Underbridge]

"The fact that teens sneak out does not mean that the parents aren't lousy. They're still responsible, and they're still lousy for letting their teen sneak out in the first place. More to the point they are lousy parents for forcing their kid to feel like they have to lie and / or sneak out to do the things they want. I didn't sneak out, because I knew I could go to my parents and tell them exactly where I was going."

Perhaps. But if you can't protect your children against their own stupidity, don't expect a web site to do it for you. So no $30M or whatever they're asking for.

Re:Hang on...

[loconet]

The child's parents were at home watching TV ofcourse because, sadly, we all know governments do the parenting nowadays.

Re:Hang on...

[Ronin Developer]

"He was a high-school senior was actually 19. Well from that statement she knew she was meeting someone 3-4 years older than herself, but not 5???"

I knew several 19 year old seniors - not the brightest bulbs on the circuit - but they were 19 at graduation.

He may have been younger when he created his profile and never updated it. And, if she lied about her age, well...it's easy to see how this occurred. Tragic, but understandable.

I don't condone his actions - not in the least. And, I'm 100% in agreement with another poster that the only reason MySpace is being sued for $30M is because Solis doesn't have it. MySpace was not charged because they are not responsible for what occurred. The case should never be allowed in the first place.

Focus should be placed on the parents who may or may not have known their daughter, at age 14, was being wined and dined by someone claiming to be a high school senior. 15/16 year olds are sophopmores (i.e. 10th grade) - she was a best a freshman or still in middle school. Her parents failed her by not taking enough of a role in her life and knowing what she is doing. Some things happen, but it is possible that this could have been prevented.

As someone who's best friend's husband is now serving an all too short 59 months for having a sexual relationship with an underaged girl over a span of 5 years (she was 13/14 when it started - he was in his early 40's - he claimed he didn't know that having sex with a minor was illegal - it was a consentual relationship. Right.), I saw how easy it is for a young teen to get involved in a situation like this. As a result, my children are not permitted on the internet except to visit a few kid oriented game sights or for school oriented research. Even then, my wife and I are keenly aware of what they are doing, where they are going on the internet and who they are communicating with. Eventually, they will be allowed more freedoms as they grow older - but we will still want to take an active involvement in their lives. That's what parents are supposed to do.

RD

Re:Hang on...

[DavidTC]

I don't know about 'wined and dined' (Especially as duh, neither of them can purchase wine.), but I do want to know what the hell she thought they'd be doing at his place.

For real adults, 'come back to my place' is 'let's get cozy and see where this goes'. For teenagers, and even immature adults (And a 19-year old dating a 14 is immature, but more to the point, she is a teenager, so she should expect it.) 'Come back to my place, where there are no parents' means 'Let's fuck'. Well, in a way, it means that for adults, too, but it is more an optional thing, whereas kids have to wrangle a place to go, so it is more 'expected' that it's going to happen when they finally get there.

Anyway, they should teach this in sex ed. It's a perfect howto on how to get yourself date raped: Invite an invite back to the guy's place on the first date.

I would think this was the victim's fault to some extent (And every time I say that, I have to mention that I don't believe fault is additive or subtractive, so he's not any less to blame.), but, um, she's a kid. 14-year olds shouldn't be going out on dates like this. 14-year old dating should be 'We're going out to eat. You and your boyfriend can sit at your own table and talk about whatever you want, and maybe wander around the mall a bit when you're done.'. Letting a 14-year old get hauled around by a 19-year old on a date is just completely irresponsible parenting.(1)

And knowing how fucked up our educational system is, she probably got abstinence-only education that didn't even mention date-rape.

OTOH, there's absolutely no reason to sue MySpace for all this. Like I said, her parents, and probably her school, are both more at fault, and more to the point, legally responsible for her welfare, whereas MySpace is like the mall tht all the kids hang out at that's just where they met.

1) And I don't care if she 'snuck out'. Engendering the level of mistrust withn your child that she'd do that is also irresponsible behavior. The most important thing for a parent is to be trusted, because being trusted is the only way to keep someone safe.

Ask yourself why, for example, assaults against prostitutes are rarely reported. You shouldn't be, as some people claim, your child's friend, but you should always be their ally, and past a certain point, you should never punish them for problems, even if it's their own fault, that they bring to you to help with. Because otherwise they'll just have the problems and not tell you.

Re:Hang on...

[cayenne8]

And...who is to know? She might have had sex with him...never said no for whatever reason, got finished..felt guilty, and then told her folks about it...and they were not only angry that their little girl got fucked, but, also saw $$ signs in a lawsuit.

Women having sex consensually, and then crying rape afterwards is NOT uncommon...and coule have very well happened in this case.

Re:Hang on...

[DavidTC]

Kids will never ask for permission to have sex or do drugs because they already know the answer.

This is why, like I've been saying, the answer to those questions must not be flatout NO. The answer must be 'Here's how to do those things somewhat safely, but do you really feel you're ready for that?'.

Also, with booze, it's a good idea to let them 'experiment' by getting them completely smashed on vodka one Friday night, while safely at home, so they have a horrible hangover Saturday. And videotape them looking like an idiot. And ask them if that's what they really want to do. Play dirty. ;)

Re:Hang on...

[Hatta]

That's the most politically incorrect post in this thread so far.

Thank you.

Re:Hang on...

[crossmr]

pfft.unless the father was standing over her armed in her bed, he's a lousy parent. If she leaves the house she should be chipped in several locations and there should be no less than 3 satellites tracking her.
He should also hire someone to follow her 24 hours a day. Otherwise he's just not doing his job.

Re:Hang on...

[DavidTC]

Okay, you're the one crossing a line here. The girl is innocent. I don't know exactly what you would think she was guilty of, but even assuming you meant 'She intended to have sex but chickened out', you're wrong. She chickened out, if it was that, in a car in a parking lot, so they obviously were not about to go into full intercourse at that point. This wasn't 'both of them almost completely naked on a bed', and he put his hand somewhere and she decided to sto pright then and there, or whatever you think it was.

As for the guy's intention being nefarious. I'm sorry, 19-year olds shouldn't even try to get laid with a 14-year old. Not because it's illegal, but because she's got the maturity of a high school freshman, whereas he's supposed to be an adult. For all we know, she's mature for her age, and he's immature, but that age gap is about twice as far as both I, and law, are comfortable with.

Re:Hang on...

[CoolVC]

Not to make light of this particular situation, but I think $30 million dollars would help me get over almost anything.

Re:Hang on...

[crossmr]

How do you know he didn't teach her that? Someone can do all the right things and she can still make the wrong choice. People aren't perfect and you can educate them till you're blue in the face and they can still screw up.
Especially rebellious teens.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Why isn't anybody going after the mother?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this child negligence? The mother is the one at fault here letting her daughter do anything she wants, traveling off with people who she's never met? Of course the mother will say, I didn't know what she was doing. And I'd like to be able to sue that stupid bitch. Because knowing what your children are doing is what being a parent is all about, and she failed miserably.

Daily Show Perfect Quote

[emkman]

Dmitri Martin on the Daily Show segment about MySpace and Social Networking sites:
"On the downside they're loaded with sexual predators. On the upside they're loaded with sexual prey."

Informed consent

[TheConfusedOne]

At the age of 14 it is really hard for most kids to really understand the consequences of a sexual relationship. Now, maybe some few kids can actually comprehend this and thus provide a meaningful consent, but it's very few and there's no good test we can give them to screen the mature from the immature. So, a "magical age" was created where it was decided that most people would in fact be able to understand complex relationships. Yes, some people over this age don't really comprehend the issue, but the line had to be drawn somewhere.

Re:Informed consent

[mirio]

Yes, some people over this age don't really comprehend the issue, but the line had to be drawn somewhere.

Exactly..the line was drawn somewhere and most people admit it is arbitrary, yet people like my friend who was 20 and had sex with a 17-year old is a Registered Sex Offender (TM) for committing misdemeanor statutory rape. Nevermind the fact that he's now been married to the girl for 4 years and they now have a little one year old daughter.

The girl objected to his prosecution that was sought by her mother. She refused to testify against him at trial and spent a week in jail and paid court fines for contempt. She turned 18 just a few months after the trial and once she did she left her mother to live with the family of her then boyfriend and has been with him ever since.

Our church has a TaeKwan Do ministry (don't ask) and my friend was an instructor. He was always there with a room full of parents and other instructors and students. One of the parents found out he was a 'sex offender' and reported him to the police, saying that it didn't 'look right' that he was instructing martial arts (some of the students were teen). Due to Georgia's get-tough-on-sex crimes laws he was arrested with only the complain. In Georgia, sex offenders suspected of violating sex crimed laws are not granted bail. They are held until a finding of fact hearing be the court (IANAL but this is what his attorney called it). In his case the court date was a month away and he had a one week old baby at home. The attorney petitioned the judge for a special hearing due to his circumstances (the baby) and the judge released him on a signature bond. This was very unusual as most judges won't do that. At the final hearing the judge ruled that he did not violate any statues (remember: he's a sex offender, not on parole!) and that the claims were without merit. The judge also admonished the legislature for creating vague rules that are impossible to implement and are open to any number of interpretations.

The puritanical nature of our laws is absolutely ridiculous and is in my opinion catering to the right-wing fundamentalists in the republican party. I am a conservative Christian and former republican, by the way. I left the party when I decided the republicans could no longer perform simple addition and subtraction (read: balance a budget) and when they handed defeat to terrorists by encouraging the public to actually be afraid of them (the terrorists' stated purpose).

Re:Informed consent

[JimBobJoe]

At the age of 14 it is really hard for most kids to really understand the consequences of a sexual relationship.

According to this article by the age of 15 about 25% of people will have had sex. (It's the nifty table down the page a bit.)

Whether they're ready for it or not doesn't seem to matter if 1 out of 4 of em are doing it.

In my mind it becomes difficult to say why a 14 year old should only be making bad choices with other 14 year olds, or would they be better of with people of other age ranges.

So why were they only sued in America?

[giafly]

• If McDonalds coffee was really dangerous, they'd have been sued in every country around the World. Were they? Didn't think so.
• And if "Third degree burns occur at this temperature in just two to seven seconds" how ever did other customers drink this coffee without burning their mouths and throats and requiring skin grafts?

Damn. You're a troll aren't you? D'Oh!

Owned

[CodemasterMM]

Finally, someone takes on MySpace. MySpace is the sesspool of human stupidity; honestly. I'm glad someone is attempting to take them down.

Straight from the TOS. I hope Myspace sues her.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

I think its fair that Myspace sue her and her family back for 300 million dollars for...

Straight from the MYspace Terms of Service...

"Please choose carefully the information you post on MySpace.com and that you provide to other Users."

Choose being the key word here. She chose to contact people with her personal information, thus putting herself at risk...

"Your MySpace.com profile may not include the following items: telephone numbers, street addresses, last names"

If her profile can not contain any personal contact info as per the rules, she then chose (theres that word again) to contact this 19 year old.

Myspace is not at fault for anything.

If anything, this 14 year old is a whore.

Case and point.

Cynical-vision.. ACTIVATE!

[Churla]

I read the artice.. here's what I see....

"I hooked up on MySpace and it went bad, bad enough my parents found out. The guys in jail but I'm still they're blaming me for putting up a MySpace page looking for hookups,who can I blame? Oh yeah. MySpace did it by not stopping the guy I e-mailed. We should also sue MicroSoft for not predator filtering e-mail in outlook"

Or...

"Our daughter is no slut. There's no way that unless someone or something else facilitated it she would never get in a situation like that. Where is she now? She was really upset so she's spending the night at her friends.. um.. Marsha or somethings like that's house. We can't get a quote for you right now from her because she said Marsha's phone was out..."

Maybe I'm wrong, I'll admit that. But if I were betting money I know where it would be. Yes, the guy is a creep and criminal for doing this, but the parents should have been aware of the childs surfing habits. There is no excuse now a days and enough software that you could both track and control a browser. At the very least they should have known about her MySpace site, and her e-mail.

MySpace Meet MyLawyer

[blueZhift]

I hate to be mean, but this just looks like another case of lawyers and distraught/greeding parents trying to cash in on a tragic situation. As irresponsible as people can be, I really do not believe that any reasonable person believes MySpace holds any responsibility for what happened. Ultimately, people are responsible for their own actions and deep inside everybody knows this to be true. Lawsuits like these are more about revenge and greed than they are about going after the people responsible for some wrong-doing.

Ummm... am I missing something?

[NokX]

if there's an area of town i'm not comfortable being around - i just don't go there. you don't like getting sexual emails from users on myspace? delete your account. why doesn't she take legal action against the 19 year old? isn't he the one causing the problems, not myspace? oh wait - he's not worth millions of dollars.

From the article

[MImeKillEr]

"MySpace says on a "Tips for Parents" page that users must be 14 or older. The Web site does nothing to verify the age of the user, such as requiring a driver's license or credit card number, Loewy said.

To create an account, a MySpace user must list a name, an e-mail address, sex, country and date of birth.

"None of this has to be true," the lawsuit said.

Uh, what 14 year old has a DL or credit card? This would accomplish nothing. The adult predator who does have a CC and/or DL could simply input their info and still sign up as a minor, saying that they're verifying that they give permission for their child to have an account. This still wouldn't solve shiat.

The kid's parents are shirking responsibility for their inaction to supervise her and the stupidity of their daughter.

Granted she didn't deserve this, but c'mon. MySpace isn't responsible for making sure it's users aren't acting like dumbasses.

Also from the article:


"If you interact on MySpace, you are safe, but if a 13-year-old or 14-year-old goes out in person and meets someone she doesn't know, that is always an unsafe endeavor," Gelman said. "We need to teach our kids to be wary of strangers."


If your child doesn't know by kindergarten that strangers aren't to be trusted, you're asking for trouble. If your teen doesn't know by now, then thats one example of failure to adequately parent.


"We feel that 1 percent of that is the bare minimum that they should compensate the girl for their failure to protect her online when they knew sexual predators were on that site," he said.


They're going to have to PROVE that MySpace knew that there were predators on their site and failed to police its own system. Even if MySpace was used like this in the past, that doesn't go towards proving it. They're going to have a hard time with this point.

I live in Travis County, and can't wait to see how this unfolds. I hope it gets thrown out of court as its an obvious attempt to get a hand-out.

If they really want justice, sue the 19 yr old that molested her. Of course, they won't since he doesn't have $30M to pay them.

Re:From the article

[Cheeze]

What verifying age would do is basically make it 18+.

If anything, the parents should be the ones held responsible for their underage daughter's actions. They are, afterall, supposed to be legal guardians.

MySpace should countersue the parents.

Responsibility

[AviLazar]

I seem to remember reading somewhere, or maybe it was a lecture from a law professor who said everyone is responsible for their own actions.

This idiot of a kid probably placed herself as an adult (listing her age as 18). Went and met some guy who she thought would be "sooo cool" to meet because he is older. Then got in way over her head.

That, or in related news 14 year old gets married to 19 year old who previously assaulted her.

Whore Schmore

[aardwolf64]

IANAL, but the last time I checked, a 14-year old cannot enter into a legally binding document without her parent's consent. I think maybe you're the only person anywhere that actually reads those things...

Re:Whore Schmore

[Shajenko42]

Not quite. A 14 year old can enter into contracts - the catch is that they are voidable at the minor's discretion, thereby putting all the risk on the other party.

MySpace's defence will collapse when...

[ofcourseyouare]

Problem is, MySpace's defence will collapse when the prosecution points out one fact:
"I ask you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, how can this site claim to protect minors when it is owned by a man 38 years older than his wife..."

The bottom line is only the perp is responsible ..

[tomhudson]

FTFA: The lawyer for the parents:

MySpace says on a "Tips for Parents" page that users must be 14 or older. The Web site does nothing to verify the age of the user, such as requiring a driver's license or credit card number, Loewy said.

1. A lot of adults don't have drivers licenses
2. who the %!@&(! is going to post their credit card # nowadays unless they have to
3. kids can peek at credit card #s in their parents' wallet or purse, or swipe a carbon from the trash at a restaurant, same as other scam artists
4. People have legitimate reasons to give a false identity (for example, rape victims who want to look for help anonymously)

FTFA: The lawyer for the parents:

To create an account, a MySpace user must list a name, an e-mail address, sex, country and date of birth.

"None of this has to be true," the lawsuit said.

1. So the lawyer states the obvious ... that people lie to get free stuff
2. The lawyer doesn's say whether she lied about her age, and MySpace can't say w/o violating her privacy, so yes, she lied.
3. The lawyer fails to show how MySpace is responsible for Pete Solis' (the alleged rapist) actions.

FTFA:

Attorneys general from five states, including Texas, have asked MySpace.com to provide more security, the lawsuit said. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott sent a letter to the MySpace.com chief executive officer May 22, asking him to require users to verify their age and identity with a credit card or verified e-mail account.

1. The attorneys general should buy a clue. A LOT of minors have verifiable email accounts (I'm not talking about free accounts like Yahoo! or GMail)
2. People don't want to reveal their real identigy online because of pricacy and security concerns (hint - identity theft - how many sites have coughed up people's details, like cc #s, etc - its a regular occurance)
3. Again, the problem is Pete Solis, not MySpace. Are you going to ask the shops at the local mall to verify identity and age before allowing kids in - because that's where a lot of the under-agers hook up ...

FTFA: Stanford Law School:

Lauren Gelman, associate director of the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, said she does not think MySpace is legally responsible for what happens away from its site.

"If you interact on MySpace, you are safe, but if a 13-year-old or 14-year-old goes out in person and meets someone she doesn't know, that is always an unsafe endeavor," Gelman said. "We need to teach our kids to be wary of strangers."

And the same can be said for the local mall, the local cineplex, the local church, the local school, the local park, and any one of a number of other venues. Pete Solis has been arrested and charged. MySpace hasn't been charged, because they commited no crime, and didn't go out of their way to enable a crime. The only other difference (and a very significant one) is Solis, the alleged rapist, doesn't have $30 million.

Bottom line: There is no real way to verify a person's age or identity online that doesn't also cause problems. The internet is like any other public place - anyone can use it, and anyone *will* use it - which is why parents need to be more vigilant. Even that won't be enough, though - if the Internet were to disappear tomorrow, rapes and assaults would still happen, no matter how careful everyone is ... which is why you go after the per[p|v]s.

Outlandish, eh?

[krewemaynard]

You must not be a lawyer. Or a parent looking to divert attention away from yourself.

It wasn't too long ago that it could have been LiveJournal instead of MySpace in this headline. Should be interesting to see who winds up in the crosshairs once MySpace wears thin. Time for a loser-pays rule for suing, IMO.

Re:Outlandish, eh?

[Xabraxas]

The "loser-pays rule" is not a very good idea. It makes it very difficult for anyone but the rich to start a lawsuit. Take a Walmart employee for example. If you were making minimum wage and Walmart violated your rights would you take the chance to sue them? Walmart can afford high powered lawyers to make problems go away, their employees cannot.

Courts are ususally pretty good at throwing crap lawsuits out. You just never hear about those suits. The suits that make the headlines are the ones that have big payouts, and those are usually exaggerated by the press to sound worse than they are. The "hot coffee" lawsuit is a good example of exaggeration at the expense of the victim. Most people agree that it was a crap lawsuit, but they don't really know the specifics of it. If you are one of those people that think it was a crap lawsuit you should look up the details of the case and your opinion may change.

The parents are the ones suing, not the girl.

[Kelbear]

First thing the girl would think of after this is to go make some money? If she wanted to litigate against someone responsible she'd go after the 19 year old. Sueing Myspace is the more profitable option. If she was actually aggrieved here she would prefer to get the 19yr old.

The money-grubbing nature of the suit makes it likely that the parents found out about this later and are exploiting the opportunity to milk money off Myspace success. The girl herself wouldn't even be thinking about Myspace unless she didn't even care about the 19yr-old's participation in the first place.

The girl may even have participated willingly in the act(which doesn't make it legal), but then the parents found out later and wanted money.

Myspace is remarkably safe...

[clambake]

I was reading some stats once on this whole thing... The number of kids on myspace (pop: 50 million? Is that right!?) in a given month who get assaulted is in the 2-10 range. The number of people in San Jose, California (less than one million people) is something like 60-100.

So, it's technically a LOT safer for your kids to be online than to be in a medium sized town in Califonia.

How is this Myspace's fault?

[skiman1979]

Granted, it's terrible what happened to the girl, but how is Myspace to blame here? If someone goes to a bar, meets someone, goes back to their place, and gets assaulted, should the victim sue the bar? After all, that's where the victim met the attacker. Is this girl's family going to sue the movie theater and restaurant where they ate and watched a movie? Those businesses didn't do anything to protect her rights either... Myspace does provide *some* protection for minors, if the user is true about their age, but it is not Myspace's responsibility to screen each and every user to verify their true age. There shouldn't even be a lawsuit. Go after the attacker instead.

Re:Mod Parent Up

[Hatta]

My 14 year old daughter (who we watch like a hawk) can identify the girls in her school that give blow jobs. And we live in a small town with only about 800 residents.

Can you get her to send me a list?

Really? Could have fooled me

[Moraelin]

The vast majority of messages I see here, or at least the ones I see modded up to +5, are more along the lines of a-priori being sure that:

1) the girl alone is to blame for getting raped (as is usually the argument in this kind of a situation: a lot of guys seem to be _very_ quick to join in the chorus that there must have been something the woman said, or wore, or just being at the guy's house, or just being in a park alone, or whatever, that _clearly_ absolves the guy of any fault and makes rape entirely the woman's fault.)

2) the girl surely said "yes" and only she or her mother lied about it afterwards

3) (or maybe 2.a.) that for that matter the girl should have known that if she goes to a guy's house she's _expected_ to put out, so that is obviously "yes" enough for any guy, and obviously her fault if she acts surprised if the guy goes ahead and rapes her

4) She obviously lied about her age, probably even had a faked ID at that, and certainly any 14 year old looks just like a 19 year old. (Wonder why the paedophiles don't just go for 19 year olds, then, if they supposedly look the same as a child anyway?)

And several variations of the above. Complete with the usual blanket generalizations (e.g., surely if the guy had a car, the girl wanted to fuck him) that obviously justify the blanket conclusion that in any imaginable case one of the above applies.

Not saying that that couldn't have been the case, but the way they're passed for definitive truth before even knowing what happened there, is... strange.

And at any rate, far from being biased against the guy, I see only a lot of people who are _certain_ that it was the girl that's guilty before even making her case.

Frankly, all that's missing so far, to make the edifice of preconception complete, is the standard Slashdot blanket generalization "there are no women online, and any 14 year olds are male FBI agents." Presumably noone has yet figured how to make that fit a rape case, what with having to be present in court and go through a medical examination or whatnot. Kinda hard to fool all those that you're a 14 year old girl if you were a 40 year old guy. Still, I'm surprised that noone at least tried posting that. Kinda feels like not Slashdot without that being posted half a dozen times in a topic about people meeting online.

Re:Really? Could have fooled me

[xilmaril]

This could be way, way less sinister than your suggesting.

These are slashdotters responding to an article which (I gather) makes the assumption that he's a sick pedo. So they present a plausible counter-theory. That's what I'd do, regardless of which way the article decided. If you counter a statement, at least the fair (correct) conclusion is more likely to be found than if everybody just jumps on the bandwagon for whichever explanation comes up first.

Re:Really? Could have fooled me

[rtechie]

The author of the article didn't investigate anything. She saw fit to report the accusations in the lawsuit as fact. The relavent text from the article:

"In May, after a series of e-mails and phone calls, he picked her up at school, took her out to eat and to a movie, then drove her to an apartment complex parking lot in South Austin, where he sexually assaulted her, police said. He was arrested May 19."

The actual Austin police press release:

"Austin Police Department child abuse detectives have filed charges against a suspect in connection with a sexual assault of a child case.

Pete I. Solis, 19, has been charged with Sexual Assault of a Child, a second-degree felony. He is in custody.

During the investigation detectives learned the suspect made contact with the 14-year-old female victim through her online web page. They continued to communicate using email and cell phones. The victim was sexually assaulted in the suspect's vehicle in the 6800 block of West Gate Boulevard.

This case remains under investigation by APD child abuse detectives."
http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/ blogs/austin/blotter/entries/2006/05/19/police_man _sexually_assaulted_1.html

The age of consent in Texas is 17. Notice that he is NOT being charged with Rape. "Sexual Assault of a Child" is essentially a "statutory rape" charge, which strongly implies that she DID consent. Of course, since Mr. Solis is apparently poorer than his "victim", he'll almost certainly end up in jail.
http://www.ageofconsent.com/texas.htm

1) the girl alone is to blame for getting raped (as is usually the argument in this kind of a situation: a lot of guys seem to be _very_ quick to join in the chorus that there must have been something the woman said, or wore, or just being at the guy's house, or just being in a park alone, or whatever, that _clearly_ absolves the guy of any fault and makes rape entirely the woman's fault.)

The issue here isn't whether or not the girl was raped. That's irrelavent. The question is whether or not MySpace was irresponsible for allowing her to communicate with someone who (may) have raped her. An analogy would be suing AT&T because she arranged the date with the guy on the telephone. Which, in fact, she did. So why isn't her mom suing AT&T? Because that is obviously ridiclous. Her lawyer hopes the novelty of the internet and MySpace will allow him to screw MySpace by manipulating a gullible judge and jury who aren't familiar with the internet (or, MUCH more likely, prodive leverage for a settlement).

And think about the rules the plaintiff wishes to implement. They want to MySpace to require age verification of all users. Assuming this works, it means minors will simply not be able to use the service anymore. So we prevent children from using the telephone because a sexual predator MIGHT contact them? And it's not like this would affect any of the OTHER free homepage providers.

The fact remains that the girl was not kidnapped, and MySpace did not aid in that kidnapping. Everything that happened (according to both parties) was consentual up until a certain point in Mr. Solis' car. Are you saying that MySpace should SOMEHOW have monitored what was going on in that car?

Fundamentally, this has nothing to do with children. An adult woman (or man) could make exactly the same claim with the same rationale, and it would be just as bogus.

Re:You're Out Of Touch

[networkBoy]

My little girl is only three at the moment (I'm 30). If I could hit the pause button I would. I know my big battle will be to not be overly protective while still being protective enough.
-nB

Girl sues Stop-n-Shop next?

[Brett Johnson]

Girl sues Stop-n-Shop because the store failed to protect her from the 19-year old she met in the produce section. He invited her to join him in the back of his van out in the parking lot. But when she followed him, there wasn't a cute puppy in the van at all...

You are a sheep.

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Mostly because you believe things you see on the Internet. http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp

misleading summary

[nuzak]

Whereas it currently reads:

      "A 14-year-old is suing MySpace ...",

it should read:

      "An opportunist shyster is capitalizing on a 14-year-old's misfortunes to shake down MySpace ..."

PR Stunt by Homeland Security

[Gary Destruction]

I think this was a PR stunt by Homeland Security. It was done to convince people that the Internet should not be anonymous. They probably had a detective pose as a 14 year old.