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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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. ;)

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?

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

Hi..

[hyfe]

Hi, your honour.

I am stupid. Please make them give me money.

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 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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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: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.

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?

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?

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...

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.

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

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

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 .......

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.

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.

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...

[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...

[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...

[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...

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.