MySpace Sued by Families of Online Predator Victims

MySpace is facing more lawsuits, as the victims of sexual predators have filed suit against the social site and parent corporation News Corp. In total, four families from across the U.S. have joined together after their underage daughters were abused by men they met via MySpace. MySpace has responded to past allegations by putting in place educational efforts and partnerships with law enforcement. The company is also developing technologies to allow parents to have some measure of access to their child's account. From the article: "'In our view, MySpace waited entirely too long to attempt to institute meaningful security measures that effectively increase the safety of their underage users,' said Jason A. Itkin, an Arnold & Itkin lawyer. The families are seeking monetary damages 'in the millions of dollars,' Itkin said."

Comments

I hope they fuck many more men from myspace

[Anonymous Coward]

while the parents dance all the way to the bank at their childrens expense!! YEEEHAW!

Re:I hope they fuck many more men from myspace

[pod_sixer_jay]

Or more likely, while the parents' lawyers dance all the way to the bank.

Re:I hope they fuck many more men from myspace

[sgt_doom]

while the parents dance all the way to the bank at their childrens expense!! YEEEHAW!

Exactly so and well put! Geez Louise! Why don't they litigate against the telephone companies...after all, no doubt they conversed over their landlines or cells.....

Re:I hope they fuck many more men from myspace

[xero314]

I hope the state brings charges against the parents for neglect, but thanks them for pointing it out. I think removal of their children and a couple (or more) years in prison would do it.

Re:I hope they fuck many more men from myspace

[Fozzyuw]

while the parents dance all the way to the bank at their childrens expense!! YEEEHAW!

+1 for being intelligently said in so little words. This is what I pull from your statement...

• Parent neglect / bad parenting
• Thieving and scheming to con money
• Stupid lawsuits
• Self responsibility

Cheers,
Fozzy

Shoot the messenger

[Hoi Polloi]

I hope they sue the highway department also because the bad guys used the public road system to meet these girls.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Cornflake917]

Yeah, really the parents should be sueing themselves for being bad parents.

If you are a parent, and your child gets abused by some predator through a social networking website, you are a bad parent. If you are unaware about the dangers of MySpace to your kids, you need to get out from under that rock, and start taking responsiblity to keep track of what your kids are doing.

These lawsuits piss me off. I can't believe some parents just think the internet is some utopian place completely disonnected from the real world, filled with funny videos and websites to order their hardware from. There are bad people on the internet just like there are bad people in real life. You should be taking the same percautions for a kid who's sitting in front of a monitor, as a kid who's walking out the door of your house. I'm not even a fucking parent and I know this.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[spyrochaete]

Thanks for saying this. I was just about to ask why they're not suing the IEEE for developing the Internet Protocol.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[KillerCow]

They actually might have a claim under the Attractive Nuisance Doctrine.

Under the attractive nuisance doctrine of the law of torts, a landowner may be held liable for injuries to children trespassing on the land if the injury is caused by a hazardous object or condition on the land that is likely to attract children, who are unable to appreciate the risk posed by the object or condition. The doctrine has been applied to hold landowners liable for injuries caused by abandoned cars, piles of lumber or sand, trampolines, and swimming pools. However, it can be applied to virtually anything on the property of the landowner.

However, putting up a warning about the dangers of meeting strangers from on-line, or requiring parent's permission (which I believe is required by another US law) to join the site would exempt MySpace from accountability.

A playground analogy would apply in defence of the claim. If a child plays unattended on a playground and is abducted, the operator of the playground likely wouldn't be held accountable. [Or is unattended in a mall or place of business or whatever... the operator did not have a duty of care to protect the children from external threats].

It's a question of law and deserves to be decided. Precedent has to be determined somehow.

IANAL.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[trianglman]

They aren't necessarily bad parents, unless you think that in order to be a good parent one must monitor their child's actions 100% of the time and be worse than Big Brother. However, this lawsuit is a sign of further poor parenting in that many parents are acting like its other people's jobs to be the parent of their child. In this case they expect MySpace to be the watchful parent that the litigants aren't. Good parenting would lessen the likelihood of a lot of these online pedophiles abusing victims, but not because they monitored their children constantly; it would be because the children feel comfortable talking to their parents about what they are doing. However, not all children, no matter how good the parents, are going to share their entire lives with their parents, nor are all parents going to make that level of excellence.

Most parents now have to work 50+ hours a week (with both parents working) to keep their children in good schools and pay all of the other things that need to be paid. That they aren't able to keep up with everything their children do isn't a sign of their quality of parenting, its a human limitation. But blaming MySpace is not the answer, and this lawsuit is incredibly stupid.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[krotkruton]

It's a question of law and deserves to be decided. Precedent has to be determined somehow.

That's a really good point. As much as it disgusts me to see parents blaming others or expecting other people to protect their children, a precedent has to be set at some point. Hopefully this case will find in favor of MySpace, so maybe (crosses fingers) we won't have to hear the people with the largest mouths but least common sense bitch so much.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I tend to agree- you can't watch your children all the time. But whose fault is it if you've given your little girl a private school education, but not enough love and attention that she has to go out and seek it from somebody who will abuse her? Is it really worth the material wealth to work 50 hours a week yet miss out on giving your kids the non-material attention that they need?

Re:Shoot the messenger

[MoonBuggy]

I see what you mean, but I would tend to look at this from the "Teach a man a fish..." perspective. Rather than monitoring what the child is doing and making the decisions for them (which will simply leave them incapable of acting on their own), it seems to me that it is the job of the parent(s) to teach the child how to make the sensible decision on if it's really a good idea to meet random MySpace people at all, and if so who to meet, where to meet them and who to bring along. Once the child actually understands the point, they can decide for themselves, no monitoring needed.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[cascadingstylesheet]

>If you are a parent, and your child gets abused
>by some predator through a social networking
>website, *you are a bad parent*.

Oh, really? Universally?

If they used MySpace at the library computer
(I'm just sure you support blocking websites at
libraries, right)?

Re:Shoot the messenger

[ack154]

How about a disclaimer in their Terms of Service (scroll down the the actual Disclaimer section)?

Notably these sections:

MySpace.com is not responsible for the conduct, whether online or offline, of any User of the MySpace Services.

and

Under no circumstances shall MySpace.com be responsible for any loss or damage, including personal injury or death, resulting from use of the MySpace Services, attendance at a MySpace.com event, from any Content posted on or through the MySpace Services, or from the conduct of any Users of the MySpace Services, whether online or offline.

Usual IANAL... but does that do anything for their case in this situation?

Re:Shoot the messenger

[mackyrae]

Maybe the ARE bad parents though for letting their kids go random places with strangers.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[cayenne8]

"Most parents now have to work 50+ hours a week (with both parents working) to keep their children in good schools and pay all of the other things that need to be paid. That they aren't able to keep up with everything their children do isn't a sign of their quality of parenting, its a human limitation. "

Hmm....both my parents worked, and they certainly had enough time to monitor me. There was less of this required as I grew older and was trusted with more responsibility. Hey, we had family meals cooked from scratch most evenings too...together.

Why could this be done in the past, and is too much to do now? Hmmm. Perhaps parents aren't willing to make the sacrifices with their time they do have to do all this? Having kids is a HUGE responsibility, and people shouldn't have them until they are ready personally and financially. It requires big sacrifices. The rest of us out there are not out here to pick up your slack.

It can be done by working parents, it was in the past....and I believe the day today is 24 hours long just like back then.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[DrScotsman]

If you are a parent, and your child gets abused by some predator through a social networking website, you are a bad parent. If you are unaware about the dangers of MySpace to your kids, you need to get out from under that rock, and start taking responsiblity to keep track of what your kids are doing.

I glimpsed over TFA, the girls are aged 14 and 15. I am speaking as a 17 year old saying that 14 is maybe borderline, but every 15 year old girl I know in school is definitely smart enough not to meet up with someone on the internet like that. The lawsuit is retarded, but I'd definitely not blame the parents. Law may have to define an age below which everyone is automatically stupid (18/21/etc.), but in reality this certainly isn't true.

Granted, the parents probably didn't do what I'd expect them to do, which is simply tell them not to meet up with people over the Internet. They may be bad parents for THAT, but not for not checking every single damn URL accessed and email sent by them.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[dmitrygr]

I wish stupidity could be made painful so such parents would feel the pain each time they do something like this.

I mean I'm as happy about MySpace being sued as the next slashdotter (hope the place dies a quick and painful death) but this is not the way it should happen...being a bad parent is NOT a good reason to get rich...

And what is sad: they will win this case too.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[delt0r]

I'm thinking that perhaps they didn't go out looking for someone that will abuse them. That just who they ended up with this time. And what about all the normal girls that end up in these type of relationships? And anyway what is normal.

Good people can come from very dark family backgrounds. Bad kids can come from loving families.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Deagol]

Most parents now have to work 50+ hours a week (with both parents working) to keep their children in good schools and pay all of the other things that need to be paid. That they aren't able to keep up with everything their children do isn't a sign of their quality of parenting, its a human limitation.

No, it's a sign of rampant consumerism. I'm raising a family of 4 on 16.75/hr @ 4hr/day (that's $17420/yr). I work from home and we home school the kids. One $40,000 1200-ft^2 house, one $16,000 truck, and a handful of low utilities. No unsecured debt, no payday loans, no over-indulgence on shiny things. We live well and eat even better (Ever eat home-raised pork? It don't get much better than that.) The boogie-man of "good schools" causing people to flee to rich 'burbs with good schools and "force" over-worked families to never see each other is the result of good marketing and media scaremongering, and the gullibility of the general population.

But blaming MySpace is not the answer, and this lawsuit is incredibly stupid.

Indeed.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[SatanicPuppy]

I think it's both. You need to teach the child how to be responsible and make good decisions, but you also need to keep an eye on them.

And it's not about pulling a 1984 and installing keystroke capture gear on their computer, but instead to foster a home environment where you talk to them and they talk to you and something as significant as "I'm going to go out and meet this guy from MySpace at a hotel tonight" isn't going to slip by because you have such a history of flying off the handle when they tell you things that they don't tell you things anymore.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Slightly Askew]

Why could this be done in the past, and is too much to do now?

Business Hours

When my dad and mom both worked, my dad had to be at work at 6:00 and my mom at 7:00. Dad was home by 3:30, mom by 5:00. Today, most people don't start until at least 8:00, and, at least in the IT world, often work over. I often did not get home until 6:30. After supper, homework, showers, that leaves 30-60 minutes to spend with my kids. I finally realized that, like you said, with just a little sacrifice on my part (not sleeping in), and since we had flexible schedules, I could be at work at 6:00 and get an extra two hours with my kids. Well worth it, and has shown an incredible difference in my oldest's attitude and behavior.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[ZorinLynx]

Where the hell can you get a 1200sqft house (A *HOUSE*??) for $40K? Around here something like that starts at $300K and goes up, and that's with barely any land around it.

Am I just living in the wrong place? Holy crap...

-Z

Re:Shoot the messenger

[trianglman]

These predators don't just target children that don't get enough love and attention, they target any that they think that can be drawn out and will use any vector they can.

As far as the "Is it worth it" question; as far as I have seen (I haven't experienced this personally yet, my son is only 2), but sometimes its not about material wealth, often times parents are forced into situations like these just to keep a roof over their heads, food on the table, utilities running, and put their kids in decent schools. They are left with a decision of which is worse, a poorer education and more limited opportunities later in life or less time spent with the kids. This isn't true in all cases, but in most middle class situations I can understand it.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Marxist Hacker 42]

I'm thinking that perhaps they didn't go out looking for someone that will abuse them.

No, they went out looking for someone who would give them the attention they weren't getting from their parents.

That just who they ended up with this time.

Yes, but if they were getting that attention from their families, they wouldn't need to go looking for others.

And what about all the normal girls that end up in these type of relationships? And anyway what is normal.

Normal is meeting somebody at school and bringing him home to meet your parents before dating him. Normal is spending time with your parents and immediate family instead of on MySpace. But it's not the girl's fault- she wouldn't be spending time on MySpace if her immediate family had paid the proper attention to begin with.

Good people can come from very dark family backgrounds. Bad kids can come from loving families.

Also true. But here's the kicker- kids who have time to get into trouble come from families that don't spend enough time together.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Tanktalus]

Speaking as a 33 year old who remembers being 17 and thinking the 15 year old girls I knew were smart enough not to meet up with someone on the internet like that, I'd have to wonder about that. It's very easy for teens to feel all alone in the world as if they were the only ones with problems, when they spend all day at school with other teens feeling the same way. Because most of these teens are skilled at putting on social masks to hide their own perceived pain, some teens never see the pain their friends think they're in.

A 15-year-old girl, wishing she had more attention from her dad, meets a male stranger from the internet to fulfill that piece missing from her life. Not really that farfetched. Do I think most girls at 15 would do this? Definitely not. Many? Still no. But I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that this would be a logical outcome for not-insignificant numbers of kids.

At 15, or even 17, your brain isn't even finished growing yet. Your ability to predict the results of your actions is not as high as it will be at 25 or so when your brain does finish growing (even then, some people are better at it than others - you may be better at it at 17 than some at 25 - but they're as good as they're going to get, and you still have growth left). So a girl, looking for some male relationship, hoping for the best, meets up with some guy she doesn't really even know from the internet. Really, that's almost to be expected - if it weren't for the fact that it's the missing male leadership in her life was part of the cause of her actions, her dad might have expected it.

That's not to speak negatively of any other part of your comment - just the part that seemed to imply that every 15 year old girl you know is smart enough to avoid this (you probably don't know them behind their mask that well, nor could you), and by implication, that all 15 year old girls should be smart enough to avoid it.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[drinkypoo]

They aren't necessarily bad parents, unless you think that in order to be a good parent one must monitor their child's actions 100% of the time and be worse than Big Brother.

Personally, I think that what they need to do is raise children capable of making good decisions, and that is clearly not what they have done. I don't know about y'all, but my mommy taught me to avoid strangers, not to get into their cars or accept things from them, et cetera. And you know what? She didn't tell it to me in a stupid baby voice or otherwise insult my intelligence, so I listened to her. Mind you, I didn't listen to everything she told me - but she managed to raise me in such a manner that I was capable of making reasonable judgments.

Most people treat their children like babies well into adolescence. They switch up to treating them like adolescents sometime around the time they're a teenager. They never really treat them like an adult, an equal. Then they wonder on their deathbed what happened to their relationship with their kids.

However, not all children, no matter how good the parents, are going to share their entire lives with their parents, nor are all parents going to make that level of excellence.

Their entire lives? That's not remotely what we're talking about here and frankly it is not necessary if you arm your children with the confidence to make good decisions, and if you instill in them the confidence in you necessary for them to listen to you. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I have personally watched parents lie to their children. They seem to think that does not have repercussions. Children do not forget when you lie to them; if you're full of shit, they will remember, and they will have less regard for anything you say subsequently. At some point I got tired of my mother (who did her best, bless her heart) giving me bullshit answers to questions to which she did not know the answers, and I stopped asking her pretty much everything.

Most parents now have to work 50+ hours a week (with both parents working) to keep their children in good schools and pay all of the other things that need to be paid.

And that's somehow MySpace's fault? Actually I don't agree that it's even the case for most families. If you look at the majority of these households that are whining about how both parents have to work so many long hours and all that shit, they tend to have a new[ish] car in the driveway that they're making payments on, they've chosen to live in a place that has high rents and for that matter they are renting something nice instead of buying something acceptable and working up. In short, they are living beyond their means. Then, because they are living beyond their means and do not have time to raise their children (the most important job they will ever have) they want other people to raise their children for them.

Now, I'm not saying that everyone in financial trouble did it to themselves. Bad things happen to good people. But the majority of Americans are in debt not just for things they need, but things they don't. They give in to their kids and buy them brand-name clothing, some big fancy backpack with flashing lights and shit, and hundred dollar sneakers. Then they complain that they have to work their asses off to give them a good life. Well, that's not a good life, it's a commercialized life, and in the process they support slave labor and all that wonderful shit.

I'm tired of hearing the argument that people don't have time to raise their kids. Nothing is more important than raising your children properly, and that doesn't mean that you have to live in the lap of luxury. If people didn't spend so much money keeping their children entertained so that they wouldn't have to do any parenting, they wouldn't need as much money. If they didn't need the SUV status symbol to protect daddy's ego, then they could buy a used minivan which would not only be cheaper, but which would get better mileage and be safer to boot.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[ferat]

Given that he mentions home raised pork, he lives somewhere where that would be allowed.

My guess: quite rural. You can get a $40k house if you are willing to live nowhere near a metropolis.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't necessarily bad parents, unless you think that in order to be a good parent one must monitor their child's actions 100% of the time and be worse than Big Brother.

I don't know about "Big Brother" but you certainly shouldn't give your children the same level of freedom the USA gives to adults.

As to MySpace, or the Internet in general, until your children are old enough to say no when they are solicited for sex online they should not be allowed to have their own private account. They certainly should not have a private account called "SexyTeen1234". Instead, create a family account "SmithFamily1234" and if there's an associated website put up a formal family photo. Obviously, don't let your kids post bikini shots until you are sure they are old enough to say no sexual solicitation.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Marxist Hacker 42]

These predators don't just target children that don't get enough love and attention, they target any that they think that can be drawn out and will use any vector they can.

Only kids who don't get enough love an attention CAN be drawn out by a vector. The kid who is getting enough love and attention doesn't have the time for strangers- their time is taken up by their immediate family.

As far as the "Is it worth it" question; as far as I have seen (I haven't experienced this personally yet, my son is only 2), but sometimes its not about material wealth, often times parents are forced into situations like these just to keep a roof over their heads, food on the table, utilities running, and put their kids in decent schools. They are left with a decision of which is worse, a poorer education and more limited opportunities later in life or less time spent with the kids. This isn't true in all cases, but in most middle class situations I can understand it.

I can understand it to some extent- but I'd point out that if the choice is between a poorer education and a juvenile delequent, you're better off with the poorer education.

Now lower middle class- with both parents having skillsets worth less than $24,000/year, for instance- there's no way to do it. Which explains why the children of illegal immigrants often become gangsters and criminals. But for anybody with a college degree, then with careful savings there's room for everything.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[pluther]

I'm not the original poster, but if the guy works from home, and raises his own pigs, my guess is he's not in downtown San Francisco.

I've seen three-bedroom houses in Eugene, OR go for as little as $80K, a little outside the city, but still within reach of the busses. Farther out than that? Yeah, easily $40K.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[trianglman]

As Zorin said, where did you find a house like that?! No where within 100 miles of a decent urban area has houses that large that cheap. I live in St. Louis, with some of the lowest housing costs of the nation and can't find something like that for less than $200k.

As far as home schooling, most parent's have no ability to match the quality of education from most private schools and many public schools on their own, with or without government grants. It's also not so much the "boogie-man" of good schools that has people trying to get into suburbian private schools, its the fact that most urban public school systems are poorly funded, score lower on placement tests, and have worse graduation rates than most suburbian schools. These are statistics that No Child Left Behind, if it had been written well and properly funded, should be fixing. But the fact remains that to get a quality, thorough education suburbian public schools usually are better than urban public schools.

Limiting debt is also becoming more and more of an issue. Yes, many people 'indulge' in things that they don't necessarily need. But there are also debts like college education (becoming more and more necessary, especially with the economy still in flux as it is) and the rise in house prices. Being able to raise your own pork, etc. is not an option when most of the population can't live on farms.

I am fortunate. I too have very little unsecured debt, and don't take other high interest loans. My wife is able to work part time from home and spend most of her time with our son. But we are barely making our finances, living in a $115k house just barely big enough for 3 people with a good car and $15k of debt still on that. But it is very tight. If my wife worked more we would be able to manage the finances more easily (many months we have to put some money on a credit card, to be paid off later in the month), and if we had another child, I don't see how we could make it. This isn't rampant consumerism, this is the reality of living in a urban to suburban area. Living in rural areas is not something most people can do, and if they did it wouldn't be a rural area anymore.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[drinkypoo]

>If you are a parent, and your child gets abused >by some predator through a social networking >website, *you are a bad parent*.

Oh, really? Universally? If they used MySpace at the library computer (I'm just sure you support blocking websites at libraries, right)?

You have entirely missed the point. I mean, completely. As in, you were facing the other direction when your gun misfired.

It doesn't matter if it happens at home or not. If your child falls for an online predator, you are a bad parent. You have not armed your child with the knowledge necessary to protect itself. By the time they are actually able to use MySpace, you'd better have taught them what to watch for. To do anything less is utterly negligent and you should probably be charged with child abuse yourself simply for failing to prepare them for reality - not that I'm really advocating such a thing, but I'd love to see it.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[delt0r]

Normal is meeting somebody at school and bringing him home to meet your parents before dating him. Normal is spending time with your parents and immediate family instead of on MySpace. But it's not the girl's fault- she wouldn't be spending time on MySpace if her immediate family had paid the proper attention to begin with.
That a nice box to put people in. But its just not true. The whole equation for life does not work. Its not good parenting*time=good children. Life does not work like that.

Making the claim that if the parents spend time with there children then this sort of thing won't happen is simply not true. It helps to be sure, but does not exclude negative outcomes. I would suggest some time at a volunteer group and you will quickly get get used to the idea that victims(whatever that may be) come from every background.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Anonymous Coward]

Easy, go to a state that doesn't border an ocean, Great Lake, or the Gulf of Mexico and then live 50+ miles from any cities with more than 50,000 people. Voila, cheap housing! ;)

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Deagol]

I wrote a shell script to scrape every zipcode (on a per-state basis) from realtor.com, and I searched several states for houses $20k and under. If you're willing to eek out a living in a severely economically depressed area (say, if you telecommute like I do), there are plenty to be found out there. This was to facilitate a potential move to a new region.

That's not how I found my current digs, however. That was pure luck and patience.

Homes in this price range will never be featured on the cover of Martha Stewart Living, but they do just fine for those who are not obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

Pretty much anywhere in the 'rust belt'

Re:Shoot the messenger

[trianglman]

Only kids who don't get enough love an attention CAN be drawn out by a vector. The kid who is getting enough love and attention doesn't have the time for strangers- their time is taken up by their immediate family.

So you are advocating taking up all of your child's time so they don't have free time to spend online? These sites like MySpace aren't where kids go when they aren't getting enough attention at home. They go there to talk with their friends and share stories. They aren't there looking for someone to replace mommy and daddy, they are looking for other people who share their view, which, no matter how good a parent you are, won't always be you.

I can understand it to some extent- but I'd point out that if the choice is between a poorer education and a juvenile delequent, you're better off with the poorer education.

I'm not sure I understand this choice here. Does an abuse victim qualify as a 'juvenile delenquent'? The choice, as most people see it, is between a poorer education where their child won't have as many options and fewer chances for success and less time spent with the child, while still providing a happy and healthy household.

But for anybody with a college degree, then with careful savings there's room for everything.

Ignoring the rest of your somewhat racist statement... College debt is one of the most prevalent debts out there, it is the reason college graduates have to work 40-50 hours a week for 20 years.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Marxist Hacker 42]

There are only 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week. If the parents figure out a way that at least one parent is avaiable to the kids *all of that time* and is inventive enough to find activities *that fit the child's interests* to do *with* them, then there won't be any time for meeting strange men at the mall.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Marxist Hacker 42]

So you are advocating taking up all of your child's time so they don't have free time to spend online? These sites like MySpace aren't where kids go when they aren't getting enough attention at home. They go there to talk with their friends and share stories. They aren't there looking for someone to replace mommy and daddy, they are looking for other people who share their view, which, no matter how good a parent you are, won't always be you.

If it's not you- you need to figure out why not and change your parenting skills.

I'm not sure I understand this choice here. Does an abuse victim qualify as a 'juvenile delenquent'? The choice, as most people see it, is between a poorer education where their child won't have as many options and fewer chances for success and less time spent with the child, while still providing a happy and healthy household.

A girl who would go meet somebody she just met on the internet most certainly is missing something at home. Sexual abuse was once considered "encouraging juvenile deliquency".

Ignoring the rest of your somewhat racist statement

Not all illegal immigrants are Mexican. Being opposed to illegal immigration is about rule of law, not racism.

College debt is one of the most prevalent debts out there, it is the reason college graduates have to work 40-50 hours a week for 20 years.

I stayed single and paid off my college debt within the first 5 years of working. A college degree should allow you to do this if you continue to live like you did in college until the debt is paid off.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Deagol]

Limiting debt is also becoming more and more of an issue. Yes, many people 'indulge' in things that they don't necessarily need. But there are also debts like college education (becoming more and more necessary, especially with the economy still in flux as it is) and the rise in house prices. Being able to raise your own pork, etc. is not an option when most of the population can't live on farms.

I live on a 1/4-acre parcel. Zoning is the issue. But even in places where you cannot have pigs, you can often raise rabbits (meat, wool), goats (meat, milk), and chickens (meat, eggs). Lacking favorable zoning, there is livestock that can be raised indoors clandestinely (rabbit, quail, guinea pig) as well as vegetables. I'm lucky in that I do live very rural, outside of an incorporated city or town, and my nearest neighbor is 0.5 miles away.

As for "good" primary education and college, those things are only really necessary if you hope your children will opt into the same rat-race as everyone else. If you can swing it on a low income and provide much for yourself, you have no need for a college education. That doesn't mean our kids will be uneducated by any means. However, our goal is to produce well-read, self-sufficient people with the ability to reason. If they want to pursue college to their own ends, they will certainly be able to do so.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Anonymous Coward]

Only kids who don't get enough love an attention CAN be drawn out by a vector. The kid who is getting enough love and attention doesn't have the time for strangers- their time is taken up by their immediate family.

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Your perception of this is based on a very limited set of factors. I could agree that kids who get more attention will get into these situations less. But nothing is 100%. Good kids from good families will end up making bad decisions. It's happened in the past, it's happening now, and it will keep happening in the future.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[FatAlb3rt]

I live in St. Louis, with some of the lowest housing costs of the nation and can't find something like that for less than $200k. Google - st. louis real estate - click first hit for realtor.com - search Central and South St. Louis County, single-family homes, 1200 sq ft or more, $0-$200k. 1181 of the 6041 homes on the market match this criteria.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're not an trained in history, mathematics, physics, chemistry, statistics, world literature, composition, multiple foreign languages, computer programming, economics, and religious studies, then your kids aren't getting as good of an education as I did at an "OK" public school. Schools are a great way to show the idea of comparitive advantage. You can hire eight experts and give a class a great education, or one well-rounded person and give them a mediocre one. Specialization! Oh, plus that whole social thing.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Marxist Hacker 42]

It's actually based on the experience of my family and my wife's family. My family because we needed to work on the farm, my wife's family because her father was very strict in that the family did *everything* together. There simply wasn't time to get into situations like this. I'm not saying we never got into trouble- I was often suspended for fighting at school (where once every two years is "often"). But outside of school, our activities were planned and regulated.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Bishop]

rabbits (meat, wool) Wool from a rabbit? Please explain.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Deagol]

Straw men, and plenty of them. Teach your kids to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic, then they can do the rest themselves to whatever level they aspire to. I can help with many subjects, but so can books, libraries, and the internet. Many great people (businessmen, politicians, etc.) rose to prevalence in the not-too-distant past with little or no formal education. Toss the TV and video game consoles, and kids will turn to reading and exploring topics of all sorts.

Google "unschooling" as a growing trend in home schooling.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Deagol]

google "angora rabbit"

Re:Shoot the messenger

[trianglman]

You cannot raise enough food for a family of three (heck, you can only barely raise enough food for a single person) in an urban/suburban house. You can raise enough to suppliment, but to get enough food for a family, a suburban house will not cut it.

A primary and college education is necessary if you want your children to make more than $20,000 a year in an urban/suburban environment. This would be only barely above what is determined to be "Relative Poverty". Without a college education, especially in today's job market where working in retail practically requires some college, you are not likely to work at a job better than the corner gas station or Wal-Mart making minimum wage. Some parents might be fine with that, but most want their children to have a better life than the one they had.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[vertinox]

As far as the "Is it worth it" question; as far as I have seen (I haven't experienced this personally yet, my son is only 2), but sometimes its not about material wealth, often times parents are forced into situations like these just to keep a roof over their heads, food on the table, utilities running, and put their kids in decent schools. They are left with a decision of which is worse, a poorer education and more limited opportunities later in life or less time spent with the kids. This isn't true in all cases, but in most middle class situations I can understand it.

Many people don't realize, but could really move to Norway or a nation that pays 100% of college education if you put forth the effort to get a work permit.

However, many people don't because they just have the knowledge or the whereabouts to realize where they live now may not be the best situation for their children.

My parents realized this and moved to a very rural area when I was very young in the States. They didn't have good pay, but in general it was safe and I still had opportunities afterwards.

Remember, school and college isn't everything to making a someone happy and successful in life.

I mean what is the point if you go to school only to get a job you hate to raise your batch of kids. Personally, I have decided to end the cycle and not have children and I wish people would realize that is a valid option.

Having kids in itself is not really necessary for the rest of the world. The world doesn't need any more kids and having kids by itself won't complete you as a person. If you already have kids then you need to make the best of it. If you don't then consider your options about the environment you will be in if you tried to raise kids.

It may not be the best if you have to work 50 hours per week in your current area.

If you really want kids and want to put forth the effort then I think the grandparent post is right to really consider something else than just your job. Move somewhere that doesn't cost a great deal to live... Heck... Move to a country with better education. Vote with you feet. Not just your money.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[rwhamann]

For us, homeschooling provides the advantage of tailoring to interests and talents. My son is a potential world-class pianist. We have been able to easily find excellent piano and trumpet teachers for him because we can go whenever - we don't have the confines of school. My daughter is very into drama, and has the ability to be in multiple plays each year.

As far as socialization, that straw man has been burned to the ground too many times to count. My kids are among the most mature kids of there age in any group we bring them too - except the homeschool coops. There, all the kids are mature.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Dread_ed]

Sometimes the tough part is convincing your budding teens that you are actually advising them in an affort to help them. At that age, there is an ingrained (IMHO) belief that parents are just trying to fuck up all of our fun in life.

My wife and I have totally won over our oldest by a few simple excercises. First we have had open and frank converstaions with her about all subjects. She is informed on all the subjects that she has questions about and some that she never did question because we thought it was proper that she was prepared and not ignorant.

Second, we allow her to make many decisions that we do not agree with 100% (within limits, no need to call CPS). We preface this with discussion of why we think this is the wrong thing for her, caution her about what she needs to be careful of, and most importantly, we tell her in no uncertain terms what we think the outcome will be. This teaches her, in our opinion, responsibility for her actions and the true value of her parent's approval and counsel. The fact that we have made the right call much more often than not with our predictions is well in our favor.

The result? Now all we have to do is caution our daughter about certain actions and behaviors and she does the rest. By the rest I mean that she asks us why we think it is a bad idea and is truly interested in what we think and say. Then she thinks about what we have told her and comes to a decision.

For my wife and I it is the best possible outcome. We dont want automatons for children. People like that make good wage-slaves, but we don't want that limitation to come as a result of our upbringing.

The freedom we give her in certain areas is not only a way to create a free thinking adolescent that is independent and strong, but also a test to see where she is heading mentally and socially. It helps us to figure out where we need to apply gentle pressure and lets us get a good glimpse of what is going on inside her head.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[DragonWriter]

If you are a parent, and your child gets abused by some predator through a social networking website, you are a bad parent.

Or maybe not. Bad things happen to children of basically responsible parents, too; no one is perfect. But when something bad happens to a child, its fairly natural for parents to want to say that someone else should have prevented it, otherwise they have to face the question of whether they somehow failed.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[ADRA]

I support your opinion, but I'd like to add a different perspective

By 15, one can assume that most children are responsible and intellegent enough to remain unattended and not get 'into trouble'. But, that assumption only applies when the child is well aware of the dangers they're facing. The internet is not TV, and parents shouldn't assume that it is. The internet is a collaboration vector where bad people can talk to your children. Some are real perverts and some are worse. You have to educate them! Give them the tools to know the dangers of surfing the internet. Hell, I remember being in high school 10 years ago and being taught by our librarian on what not to do in chat forums, etc..

Maybe these people really don't know that meeting some guy at a diner, coffee shop, mall, hotel can be a pretty stupid idea no matter what. If I was a parent, i'd tell them if they ever want to meet anyone online that they:
A. Allow me to meet them at the same time. I don't really want to enforce standards on my child's association as long as it isn't a serious disruption. If the kid told a peophile that, they'd most likely move along to the next victim.
B. Tell them that they have to meet each other during school hours on school campus with lots of people around. It disconnects me from the situation which may be worrying, but it seems like a natural detraction for people with nefarious intentions.

Are there programs in school like intro to computers courses that talk about this type of thing? If it isn't, I don't think the schools are doing their job. If the child was molested because they had used a school computer, you can damn bet the school would've been liable as well. But, if the school took steps to educate the children what NOT to do, then the parent wouldn't have a leg to stand on.

Now that brings along the most stark and difficult problem of all. Many parent are throwing their kids on the internet but know absolutely nothing about protecting their children online. Nadda. They say don't talk to strangers, but you can't be so vague on the internet. They're all stangers! Parents should find a good resource on best practices in dealing with their child's online experience. I wouldn't say that blocking is the key. I think teaching your children to be better more savey surfers will go a lot further than any type of technological barrier.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[cparker15]

The list goes on! The parents could sue...

• The shoe manufacturer of either party involved for manufacturing the shoes that helped both parties walk to their final meeting place.
• The girl's school for not teaching her how to properly avoid this type of situation.
• The perpetrator's school for not teaching him not to solicit minors.
• The city/town's and/or state's law enforcement agencies for not catching the perpetrator before the abuse happened.
• The city/town where it happened, for fostering the sort of atmosphere that would allow people to meet for such an act.
• The car salesman that sold the perpetrator his car that brought him to the city/town where the abuse happened.
• The manufacturer of said car for designing and producing a car that would end up being an accomplice to a pedophile.
• The ISP that either party used for not monitoring the electronic communications that led to the two parties meeting.
• The computer manufacturers of all computers involved in said communications for enabling such a thing to happen.
• ...

I could keep going, but my brain hurts. I'm not used to thinking like an imbecile. Next!

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's not you- you need to figure out why not and change your parenting skills.

Actually, I'd say that it can't ALWAYS be the parent, but it's still the parent's responsibility to steer the child towards relationships that benefit the child. Whether its a pastor or a principal (he's your pal!), having "someone else" children can talk to is important because at certain ages, children will seek out other ideas and opinions, first out of curiosity, then out of rebellion. The little kids in the cart at the grocery stores will say "hello" when you walk past them when they're at the stage of finding other people, that's when the "don't talk to strangers" talk should begin, ideally followed with "here, this person is a friend, you can talk to him/her".

Re:Shoot the messenger

[locokamil]

Pshaw. I kill pigs in my NYC apartment all the time. The neighbors do get a little testy at times about all the squealing, but I just tell them it's my girlfriend having sex with me.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[0m3gaMan]

OMFG why aren't the MySpace admins looking over my little Bratley's shoulder!1111!1!

The present generation of parents is utterly risk-averse. Moreover, they don't want to be responsible for anything. If their crotchfruit gets into trouble or does something wrong, surely there is a company or institution that can be sued.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[RobertLTux]

if you currently have or are capable of having/causing children engrave this on the top of your computer desk/wall above your computer

Mind > Matter > Energy >Mind or
Thought> Action > Deed > Thought or
Real World > Online World > CyberSpace > Real World

(think triangles)

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Anonymous Coward]

around here, a 1200sqft house can cost over $700k, fortunately for me, I got my house before the prices quadrupled about five years ago.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[twakar]

I work from home and we home school the kids. One $40,000 1200-ft^2 house, one $16,000 truck,
I think you must live in the sticks, or in a very economically depressed area. Where I live, in the Vancouver, B.C. area, the average house price for 2000 sqft home on a 4000 sqft lot is $650,000.00 or higher. Between my wife and I, we make about $100,000/yr and couldn't qualify for a mortgage.
However I am glad you can live and work from the same place and then be better parents to your kids, which after all, that's what this thread is about.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Anonymous Coward]

These parents allow their young daughters to put up personal ads and then cry when someone responds, yeh that makes them bad parents.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Servo]

While not as cheap as you or the original poster's price range, my dad was able to relocate his company to a rural area of TN since he rarely if ever deals face to face with his customers. They want to know he's a real brick and mortar company, but don't care how fancy the bricks are. He now lives in a very nice 3 bedroom home on a private road on a private mountain with 5 acres of land for less than what he paid for his previous house of about the same size in an overcrowded zero-lot-line development. Overall, I think he cut his overall operating expenses (between work and personal) by 1/3 to 1/2 and lives a much more relaxed lifestyle.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Laserwulf]

Well said; when I was little, my dad -drilled- into me such concepts as "don't talk to strangers", "trust police officers", "look both ways before crossing the street", etc. At the time I thought it was unnecessary, but as I got older, they were able to trust my judgment. I never even had a curfew.

If a parent can't teach their children safe behavior, should they really be a parent?

Re:Shoot the messenger

[redcane]

Hell, there is no way to be perfectly safe in this world. Not for children, not for adults. There is always the chance of a shotgun wielding maniac bursting through your door, or being hit by a meteorite.
Of course, if you don't put in a reasonable amount of time keeping track of your childs whereabouts and associates, you are asking for trouble. There is a chance your child will be fine, but you are certainly increasing the odds of them finding a bad character. Good parenting does require time, But infinite time will not make for perfect parenting.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[sarahbau]

The parents don't have to watch their children 100% of the time to prevent something like this. They don't even have to know that their child is using MySpace. What the parent does have to do is teach their kids. If the parents had taught their kids not to give their address to anyone, then this wouldn't have happened. It's no different than teaching them not to get in a car with a stranger.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[redcane]

Nothing is 100%, but at least if the home environment is a good one, you've done all you can to prevent it. You can never guarantee anyones safety though.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[SvnLyrBrto]

I dunno about you. But while I don't particularly give a damn about Martha *o* the Jonses; I still don't want to live in some hick town way out in the middle of godforsaken nowhere.

Of all the places I've lived, the one I think I miss the most was my old one-room studio apartment. It couldn't have been an inch over 300 ft^2, and I "furnished" with more-or-less the cheapest Ikea crap that could be had. But it was a two-minute walk up the hill from the Mission District, with all the fun and life that entailed. Well... two minutes to walk *down* the hill, more like five or ten to get back up depending on my own state of sobriety or the lack thereof; but that did give me the added advantage of random *other* drunk people not staggering up to my doorstep!

cya,
john

Re:Shoot the messenger

[ultranova]

If the parents figure out a way that at least one parent is avaiable to the kids *all of that time* and is inventive enough to find activities *that fit the child's interests* to do *with* them, then there won't be any time for meeting strange men at the mall.

So what happens when those kids get to have some free unprogrammed time - which will happen when they move out of home, at the latest - and have no practice in neither entertaining themselves nor dealing with other people or life in general without a referee, assuming they haven't gone stark raving mad from being monitored and therefore having to watch all they say, do or think all their life of course ?

Re:Shoot the messenger

[ultranova]

Only kids who don't get enough love an attention CAN be drawn out by a vector.

Anyone who has any needs or wants whatsoever can be drawn out by a vector. People, even children, have needs and wants beyond getting love and attention; curiosity, for example: "I live in a really neat house, want to come see it ?" from a sexual predator pretending to be a 13-year old is every bit as effective (or ineffective - I'm not a sexual predator nor marketroid so I don't know how to market effectively to a 13-year old) on a kid who's being doted upon than one who's not.

The kid who is getting enough love and attention doesn't have the time for strangers- their time is taken up by their immediate family.

Then logically any kid who has friends isn't getting enough love and attention at home, since she's obviously had enough time to meet and befriend strangers.

But please tell me, what happens when that kid who's used to overwhelming love and attention moves out and can't get it anymore from her parents ? Where does she go looking for it ? And what will likely result ?

You don't need to be a kid to have bad things happen to you.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Reservoir Penguin]

God forbid someone might enjoy unspoilt nature and nice people you can be life friends over amphetamine crazy ravers in the Mission.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Reservoir Penguin]

Too bad college education didn't provide with reading comprehension. Hell, English is not my native language and even I got the point. He doesn't want his kids to become cogs in the machine, even college educated white-color. What good is your education and high salary if you never have a second to stop and think about your life and your family? The most important thing in life is your family and spending time with them. He seems to be on the right track, are you?

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Marxist Hacker 42]

So what happens when those kids get to have some free unprogrammed time - which will happen when they move out of home, at the latest - and have no practice in neither entertaining themselves nor dealing with other people or life in general without a referee, assuming they haven't gone stark raving mad from being monitored and therefore having to watch all they say, do or think all their life of course ?

We're all still monitored. If it isn't our parents, it's the Bush Administration. Good behavior becomes a habit.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Anonymous Coward]

Dayton Ohio. There's several quasi-mansions available for sale for under 20k.

As long as you don't mind living in a former crack house that you bought from the cops.

Re:Shoot the messenger

[Bishop]

thanks.

Candy

[unchiujar]

I guess suing for millions of dollars is better than educating their kids not to accept candy from strangers...

Re:Candy

[couchslug]

MySpace and all other online activities should simply have EULAs that exclude underage users, and write appropriate self-protective clauses into it as needed. Stupid parents are never going to educate their children, so any expectation that this will change is irrational.

Re:Candy

[unchiujar]

If they exclude their underage users, what are the predators to do?. Will nobody think of the predators ?

Re:Candy

[Thansal]

Deffine underage. If you are goign to say the age of concent, then MySpace just lost most of their customers, if you say something lower (like say 14?) then MySpace already has that in there.

Re:Candy

[ukatoton]

And you think this will help how? Parents will complain that there aren't stringent checks enforcing these rules. There must be many, many users on myspace who are too young to join according to the current rules, but they know enough to get past this: they ignore it. This sort of problem is not something that can be escaped on the internet. No amount of education will completely irradicate it, but it may help some. The problems is, there's nowhere to get advice other than the obvious "don't talk to strangers", which everyone ignores anyway. If anything, the courts should throw these cases out, as they're purely for money. If they were actually campaigning for some sort of online awareness education, then I might feel differently.

Re:Candy

[tinkerghost]

EULA's are nice but generally not worth the photons they're read with. It's pretty settled law that you can't sign away your right to sue in a contract. Hold harmless clauses are generally there to scare away the clueless, but unless there is a full and detailed legal discussion surrounding the signing of a contract/deal with a hold harmless clause, they are generally tossed out in court.
IANAL etc.

Re:Candy

[birdboy2000]

Yeah. Making sure minors can't talk to anyone outside their hometown the parent doesn't like is a *great* way to raise the new generation!

Re:Candy

[Jugalator]

Huh? Why not just go on with their human skull collecting and polishing as usual? :-)

Re:Candy

[Jugalator]

Since people aren't mature enough to take care of themselves below 21* in the US, I recommend that age.
So... underage = 20 years or less. :-p

* = highest drinking age in the world

Re:Candy

[pod_sixer_jay]

Then all you'd have to do is figure out how to keep teenagers from wanting to talk to each other. Myspace thrives because there is a demand for it. You don't make demand go away by squelching supply.

Stupid parents are never going to educate their children. But the answer to that is to hold stupid parents responsible for their stupidity, not to select someone else arbitrarily to take the blame.

Re:Candy

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything in the above post is probably opinion.

And probably misspelled

Re:Candy

[couchslug]

I didn't say the EULA would be effective or that supply could be "squalched".
The idea is to protect the company. The underage users can simply lie if they want to use the service. Who thinks they won't?

Re:Candy

[Thansal]

Yup!

I was pondering removing my silly smash of movie quotes in favor of publicly aknowledging the fact that I can not spell or type, and I have next to no knowledge of grammar.

Then I figgured that ACs could always point it out for those people that have missed it.

Re:Candy

[Anonymous Coward]

Since i actualy bothered to go out and read MySpace's ToS and warning pages last time a case like this came up i can tell you.

They do. If your 14 or under your outright prohibided to use the site, no parental consent, no nothing. Just NO!

If your over 14 but still a minor only other minors can see your proflie without being on your friends list (SO PARENTS CHECK YOUR CHILDS LIST). Their ToS also forbids things like publishing your personal infromation (street adress ect).

And if that wasent enough theres two pages of tips on how to use myspace safely one for parents and one for children. This list includes obscure and not intutitive advice like "MySpace is a public space. Members shouldn't post anything they wouldn't want the world to know (e.g., phone number, address, IM screen name, or specific whereabouts). Tell your children they should avoid posting anything that would make it easy for a stranger to find them, such as their local hangouts."

Or even "People aren't always who they say they are. Ask your children to be careful about adding strangers to their friends list. It's fun to connect with new MySpace friends from all over the world, but members should be cautious when communicating with people they don't know. They should talk to you if they want to meet an online friend in person, and if you think it's safe, any meeting should take place in public and with friends or a trusted adult present."

Now i realise that part of the problem is that most parents dont know the differnce between CD and a DVD, and most kids are so much better at computers than their parents that they can casue their parents eyes to glaze over in 30 seconds or less, but those two tips up there arent overly complicated. The internet is a public place, leaving your child on the net all day is no safer than leaving your child unsupervised at the mall all day. (Actualy considering all the cameras and security guards at most mall's the mall is likely safer)

Lotto

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets see if we can win the lotto!

Great idea

[Renraku]

Go ahead and sue the mall for not protecting your children.

Your ISP for transmitting the email.

Dell for supplying you with the computer.

Finally, Ikea for supplying the desk/chair that your daughter sat on to correspond with the predator. Without them, she probably wouldn't have made contact and talked to the predator.

All of this could have probably been prevented by proper education/supervision. But its easier to sue than it is to raise a kid.

Re:Great idea

[kaizenfury7]

Just out of curiousity, is there any precedence for parents being charged with parental negligence in this type of situation? This would go a long way in encouraging/coercing parents to be accountable for their children.

Re:Great idea

[j00r0m4nc3r]

But its easier to sue than it is to raise a kid.

It's easier to raise a kid with a couple extra million in your account...

Re:Great idea

[wiz31337]

People like this are the reason they need to put warning stickers on curling irons that say "Do not insert into any orifice." I could go on and on about the different warning stickers that sound crazy but are an absolute necessity due to people like this. People would rather sue than to take responsibility for their actions, the huge amount of money does not hurt either.

Re:Great idea

[Starteck81]

Next they'll be sueing the Goverment for cars that hit their children who were playing in the streen unsupervised. They'll claim something like, "It took the government too long to place children playing the street signs" on every block.

Re:Great idea

[xero314]

It's easier to raise a kid with a couple extra million in your account...

I think what you mean is "It's easier to justify neglecting your children with a couple extra million in your account"

Re:Great idea

[JimBobJoe]

Just out of curiousity, is there any precedence for parents being charged with parental negligence in this type of situation?

In Michigan a father let an adult male who was dating his under the age of consent daughter live in their house for some time. The father presented no particular objections to the relationship, and, as I recall, bought the daughter condoms for the express purpose of sex with the adult male.

Relationships between everyone concerned soured to the point that the father reported his daughter's boyfriend to police for violation AOC statutes, and it ended up that the father became charged with acting as an accessory to that violation. (

As you can see, prosecutors avoid these issues. It sets up horrible precedence that gets very complex. The fact that the father bought condoms was a key fact in charging him with the crime. If that's the case, then handing out condoms to 15 year olds might very well bring on the same obligations/liabilities.

It's the closest thing I can think of. Article here.

Re:Great idea

[_newwave_]

Good question.

Close, there was a recent lawsuit filed against parents for parental negligence as their child died of issues related to childhood obesity which is more reasonable, in my mind, than suing McDonald's (just as your thought is more reasonable than suing MySpace).

Of course

[DragonMageWTF]

Because parenting your own children is so old fashioned.

Re:Of course

[gzerphey]

To paraphrase Bender: Have you ever tried turning off the computer, sitting down with your children, and hitting them...

Parental responsibility?

[micktaggart]

These parents should take a look at themselves first. Knowing what sites your children visit is just part of being a responsible parent.

Re:Parental responsibility?

[delt0r]

Whats real funny is that when there is a story about how parents use tools to monitor what there children do online, everyone on \. cries foul about the breach of privacy.

Oh but there should be a good trusting relationship etc... What and you never did something agaist your parents wishes? Even good kids/teens do stupid things sometimes.

You are right. The parents should know what there children are up to(they are minors after all). But then let us do our jobs, and alow us to check up on our kids without the cries of evil when we do so. Remember these kids can be very smart, and can be quite decptive when they want to be.

Please.

Re:Parental responsibility?

[Anonymous Coward]

Whats real funny is that when there is a story about how parents use tools to monitor what there children do online, everyone on \. cries foul about the breach of privacy.

That's /., you MS-DOS clod.

Re:Parental responsibility?

[delt0r]

Stupid foreign keyboard. :(

Re:Parental responsibility?

[Shawn is an Asshole]

Whats real funny is that when there is a story about how parents use tools to monitor what there children do online, everyone on \. cries foul about the breach of privacy. IMHO, spying on your children is not the answer. Educating* them to not be a dumbass is. My parents always warned me about strangers and not giving out information to random people.

Many people just don't want to bother with actually being a parent. They want the schools and government to do the work for them.

* Yes I'm aware of #5 in The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security. But educating a child to not give away personal information or meet up with random people is necessary both online and in real life.

Re:Parental responsibility?

[DragonWriter]

Whats real funny is that when there is a story about how parents use tools to monitor what there children do online, everyone on \. cries foul about the breach of privacy.

No, "everyone" doesn't. Some people do. Probably not the same people who complain that parents are responsible for knowing what their children do online.

There are many different people on Slashdot. You will consistently see one group taking a position in one thread inconsistent with the position taken by a different group in a different thread. That's because people on Slashdot disagree on lots of stuff.

Who's really at fault here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the parents should be charged for neglect seeing that they provided their children the internet access which they used to meet online predators.

Re:Who's really at fault here?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Maybe the parents should be charged for neglect seeing that they provided their children the internet access which they used to meet online predators.

Or better yet, for not providing enough love and attention to their child when she was growing up, forcing her to go to an abuser for love and attention.

it's not the responsibility of myspace...

[jcgam69]

...to babysit other people's kids.

Re:it's not the responsibility of myspace...

[bladesjester]

to babysit other people's kids.

Can you imagine if Myspace had kids?

*shudder*

Re:it's not the responsibility of myspace...

[Anonymous Coward]

That child would be to Paris Hilton what Paris Hilton is to a Nun.

I know...

[IflyRC]

That there is going to be a lot of responses claiming how it is the parent's responsibility and that MySpace is of no fault. Still though, if you look at it from a different viewpoint...maybe that of how bars are sometimes legally responsible for the deaths in drunk driving accidents should a person leave the establishment with the bartender/employees knowing they are not fit to drive.

Re:I know...

[Anonymous Coward]

The bar analogy doesn't work.

The bartender has a legal responsibility to make a determination as to whether the patron has already had too much and whether to serve them. Even though they frequently do not make that decision for their patron, their license to serve alcohol is on the line each time that someone leaves their establishment too drunk to drive.

MySpace has no such legal obligation. They are not able to directly view their users and make determinations about who is being truthful.

Re:I know...

[zyzko]

I'm sorry that English is not my native tongue so I'm not completely clear - are you implying that bars are somewhere liable if their employees leave their premises with a drunk person driving?

I don't understand - why go after the bar instead of the invidual? (Well, I live in Finland and in the last few days here has been going on a conversation if the bar should be responsible for reporting to the crowd "anonymous" calls they receive that reveal where police patrols are looking for drunk drivers - but here's the difference - in these cases the bar has acted *actively* telling the customers where the cops are. In comparision MySpace has "just" not maybe told where the predators are (should they have an effective mean of identifyind them...).

Re:I know...

[Deagol]

if you look at it from a different viewpoint...maybe that of how bars are sometimes legally responsible for the deaths in drunk driving accidents should a person leave the establishment with the bartender/employees knowing they are not fit to drive.

That's no less lame than this lawsuit is. Just because there is much nanny-state-ism deeply entrenched in the country, we shouldn't support more of the same.

Re:I know...

[jackelfish]

People are still ultimately responsible for their own actions. Where do we draw the line on my responsibility to make sure that you are behaving in a socially acceptable or responsible fashion? It is a tough question of morality and one that obviously does not have a black or white answer.

Re:I know...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a poor analogy. In a bar, the person is in front of them and they can witness their behavior. If myspace was a brick & mortar location and they witnessed a child predator then I would say that they should be liable. I remember a place we used to have birthday parties at for my nephew, it was a Chucky Cheese type deal. Adults were not allowed in unless accompanied by a child. Sorry, although I personally don't like myspace and have only been there a couple of times, I don't think they are guilty of anything more than running a webspace with obnoxious self created pages.

Re:I know...

[psykocrime]

Still though, if you look at it from a different viewpoint...maybe that of how bars are sometimes legally responsible for the deaths in drunk driving accidents should a person leave the establishment with the bartender/employees knowing they are not fit to drive

Those cases are bullshit just like this is though. Individuals are responsible for their own actions... it's ridiculous to think that my actions (getting drunk, driving, getting in a wreck) can in any way involuntarily impose any sort of legal obligation on someone else (bartender, bar owner).

Now I'll accept that it might not be ethical for a bar to continue serving someone who is wasted, at least without checking to see if they're driving, but unethical != illegal.

Re:I know...

[thesolo]

Bad analogy. A bartender knows how many drinks they have served to a patron, and can watch their behavior, etc. The only way Myspace could do something similar is if they have staff members sitting there reading each message, etc. Even then, they can't guarantee that the age someone enters into the site is accurate. Either way, I don't agree with the bartender (or Myspace) being sued. The drinker has to have some level of personal responsibility, as do the parents of these children, plain & simple.

The parents in these cases were likely negligent, and now they're looking to make a quick buck because someone didn't do their job for them. I hope their cases are thrown out.

Re:I know...

[pod_sixer_jay]

Consider some salient differences.

Myspace provides communication. Communication is not inherently predatory. Bars provide alcohol. Alcohol is inherently intoxicating to humans. The proprietor of a bar knows that alcohol exceeding some amount will necessarily produce intoxication. Myspace operators cannot know that communication in any amount will necessarily result in sexual predation. There is a fundamental qualitative difference between what these two kinds of service provide.

Let's say your bar has 20,000,000 patrons and is largely self-service. To what extent should you be held liable to verify the inebriation of each one of them? There is a fundamental quantitative difference between each service's clientele.

Primary responsibility for the safety of some minor rests on those closest to the minor, not with some distant corporation. If the parents failed to instruct their minor children about the dangers of communicating with strange adults and failed to pay sufficient attention to their children's activities, then I cannot see why they have been injured by the actions of Myspace. In the wake of the Columbine High School shooting, the parents of the perpetrators were taken to task for not having paid appropriate attention to what their children were doing. Now the shoe is on the other foot: other parents who have failed in exactly the same way now claim to be the victims themselves.

Re:I know...

[Virak]

MySpace shouldn't be in any way held accountable for this. They can't ensure that everyone always tells the truth about themselves without extensive, invasive, impractical checks to get everyone's personal details, and then monitoring of all posted content so that none of it has false information.

And it's not just the parents' fault, for not paying at least *some* attention to their daughters' activities online, it's also the fault of their children, for not having even the slightest bit of common sense. They're all 14-15 years old, there's no excuse at that point for not realizing that giving out personal information to strangers is a stupid idea, and meeting up with strangers is a really fucking stupid idea. Hell, when I was using the intertubes when I was *12* I was smarter than that.

Re:I know...

[rborek]

They have a responsibility because they sold and served you the alcohol - in many (most?) locales it is illegal to serve to the point of intoxication, so they owe you a duty of care.

In Ontario, bars owe a duty of care to patrons (and therefore to anyone they injure), but people who hold parties in which guests may drink do not owe a duty of care, as they bring their own alcohol and consume it on their own. This would be a more appropriate analogy - MySpace provides the site, pages, and outlet (for free no less), but does not police content, private messages, conduct background checks on members, etc. What you do is your own responsibility - if you want to consume all the alcohol you want at a friends place and drive, it is your responsibility... and if you want to meet some guy in a motel, or run off with him, it is your responsibility as well (and in the case of minors, the parents are responsible as well).

Meeting places have existed for as long as we have been on this planet. Whether it be a bar, pool room, mall, telephone chat line, writing a 'penpal' by mail, etc. people will meet up with other (sometimes unsavoury) people... and sometimes this will lead to unwanted situations (kidnapping, date rape, assault, etc.). Is it the fault of the bar, or the mall, or the postal service that they didn't stop you from meeting a sexual predator?

Re:I know...

[Cornflake917]

A. Bars are required by law to cut people off who've had too much to drink.
B. Even with this responsibility, bars still let people drive home drunk, and there are still drunk driving deaths
C. Myspace isn't required by law to prevent children from contacting predators
D. Even if Myspace was forced to prevent predators from contacting girls, the predators will find a new medium to find them.

If we put the responsibility on MySpace, it's a win for parents who don't want to be parents. They will start thinking that if something bad happens to their children, they can always blame something else.

Re:I know...

[Billosaur]

The difference is, if I am drunk and I get into a car and drive, I can kill or injure others. If I go on MySpace and get lured in by a predator, only I am injured. The two are not comparable.

Let me add, the State should not be in the business of raising our children -- that's our responsibility. The State has enough trouble balancing the budget and fixing potholes without claiming they are "thinking of the children." If I need their help, I'll ask.

Re:I know...

[garcia]

That's no less lame than this lawsuit is. Just because there is much nanny-state-ism deeply entrenched in the country, we shouldn't support more of the same.

At first becoming intoxicated is your own fault and you should know when to stop but there are other factors (such as alcoholism, mental deficiencies, etc) where a bartender could be influencing the behavior of someone going too far over the limit.

I am not standing up for the behavior of our society when it comes to this, I'm just saying that there is a possibility that those feeding the alcohol to an individual might have something to do w/the outcome after their leave the establishment.

Now, as far as MySpace is concerned -- no one is getting physically intoxicated by the site and they should not be held responsible for the outcome of any relationship built because of the site's existence.

Re:I know...

[Anonymous Coward]

I do not think this is very insightful, but makes for good discussion.. My view - Here we have minors who have no rights whatsoever as minors (the parents being legally liable for anything they do), using the internet and meeting people. You should of said, this is like a bartender or parent who lets a minor into a bar and drink..

Re:I know...

[Thansal]

predation
The fact that that word is the correct word to use, garners you a large amount of respect from me (I had to look it up).

There is also the fact that you hit the nail on the head as to why it is a bad analogy.

Re:I know...

[realisticradical]

No, it would be more like if bars could be sued for the date-rape that occurs because drunk people are easy targets.

Bars can be sued for drunk driving accidents because they are expected to monitor the state of their customers and not serve anyone who is obviously drunk. (Not that it happens, but still.)

Re:I know...

[smooth wombat]

Yes. In several states, including my own, bars can be held liable if a person leaves their premises while drunk then has an accident which injures or kills someones.

However, the key part is that the bar must have known the person was visibly intoxicated yet continued to serve the person.

How does one prove the person was visibly drunk? That's for the courts to decide.

Re:I know...

[shotgunsaint]

No, but if a person is visibly drunk and the bartender keeps serving them drinks, and then the customer leaves, blacks out, kills himself and three people, the bartender/ bar can be held responsible. I know, my girlfriend tended bar for several years at a certain restaurant with "flair".

Re:I know...

[Mjec]

Ok, and I'd agree if myspace employees had actual knowledge or should have, or even could have known about these children and the risk they were at, or the paedophiles and the risk they posed. Yes, they were aware of the risk in general and they took action to mitigate. That means they're not liable - because they tried to do something and they can't reasonably be asked to do much more. Well, my thoughts anyway.

Re:I know...

[tinkerghost]

Still though, if you look at it from a different viewpoint...maybe that of how bars are sometimes legally responsible for the deaths in drunk driving accidents should a person leave the establishment with the bartender/employees knowing they are not fit to drive.

There is human interaction between the bartender and the guy buying the beer. It's the same as with the safe harbor provisions for Google. If the system is automated, they are only responsible after they have been notified. MySpace is entirely automated, they have nobody reviewing the profiles for veracity or monitoring the traffic, nor should they have to. If I want to pretend to be a 16yr old blond female babbling innanely [please kill me if that ever becomes part of my job] it's not MySpace's responsibility to prove who I really am.

The first thing I think I would ask the parents on the witness stand is: "Are you in the habit of letting your daughter go on dates with people you have never met?" They get 2 answers .

1. Yes leads to the conclusion they don't take actions to protect their child.
2. No leads to the question: "Why they you let her this time?"
   • We thought it was OK:
     "If you can't tell, how is MySpace supposed to?"
   • She deceived us:
     "If she can successfully deceive you, her parent, how is MySpace supposed to detect her deception?"

Re:I know...

[wiz31337]

I am going to deem this a great example of a /. beat down.

Re:I know...

[RyoShin]

Interesting idea. Trying to think this through...

The bar is MySpace. It facilitates the drinking and leaving of drunks. The bar patron is the child. The bar allows the patron to leave, patron is killed/kills someone, bar is sued/fined/closed.

Okay, so far so good. But with this MySpace, there's a third party directly invovled- the parents. I guess the parents would be like a bouncer at the bar whose job it is to make sure that none of the patrons get overly drunk. In those cases, though, I believe both the bouncer and bar are charged. Then there's a fourth party that doesn't appear at the bar (at least, I can't think of a correlation)- the person with malicious intent. No one leaves the bar intending to be killed or kill someone with their car.

I have a problem with bars getting charged like that- sure, they can monitor the outward drunkeness of an individual, but if this is a large bar, or even something like a dance club, it's very hard to monitor each individual patron to see how drunk they are and how many drinks they've had. Similarly, you can't monitor every interaction between people on MySpace, either, which has a far higher usage rate. In both instances, you can put in some checks, but they will fail at times or someone will get around them for whatever reason. It goes back personal responsibility- people shouldn't have to have the bar monitor their drinking, they should know their own limits. However the alcohol itself, the center of your metaphor, can impare personal responsibility itself, which is what seperates the two events.

(oh, irony: my word image is "vomited")

Re:I know...

[metlin]

Why?

Why should I hold someone else responsible for my actions? At some point of time or the other, you should draw the line and say that the only person responsible is the person who made it happen.

If you plan to go drinking, don't drive your car - if I know I am going to get smashed, I take a cab. If you did not do that, then you are to blame. It's nice, isn't it? Blaming someone else - the bartender, the website, the guy who sold the gun etc?

No, the people who should be held responsible here are the parents -- it's their duty, and they failed to do their jobs.

Re:I know...

[cayenne8]

"The bartender has a legal responsibility to make a determination as to whether the patron has already had too much and whether to serve them. Even though they frequently do not make that decision for their patron, their license to serve alcohol is on the line each time that someone leaves their establishment too drunk to drive."

Depends on the state you live in. I'd never heard of this till recently, guess I never lived in a state with a law like this.

That being said...I worked at a bar one night where apparently someone underage drank, and did in fact have a wreck. No one was hurt.

They couldn't touch the bar staff legally for anything....but, they did try to sue the establishment. The place fired everyone working in the bar that night...self included. They tried to do this to avoid any civil liablity I guess.

The bar tried to use this to keep me from claiming unemployment...but, there was no proof I had done anything wrong, and they lost, so I got unemployment for a long as I could....took some time off, concentrated more on school...etc, before I got my next job.

Re:I know...

[CODiNE]

Once you put the responsibility on bartenders you're requiring them to be Omniscient by definition. They need to be mind-readers who know the make-up of each person who comes into their bar. Seriously.

For example, what about the person with very low alcohol tolerance who gets wasted after one drink? How was the bartender supposed to know that? What about people like Edgar Allen Poe who take one sip and then go on a week long insano-drunken frenzy? Besides that, the amount of alcohol needed to impair judgment may be lower than legally drunk.

I could really go on and on with this, but in the end each person is responsible to know their own limits. The bartender especially cannot be responsible for people who willfully deceive him and for example claim that they walked when in reality they drove. In the same sense then how could MySpace be responsible for people who pretend to be someone else online in order to abuse others?

You realize that if MySpace were to lose this case it would require Slashdot editors to read EVERY SINGLE POST and Journal entry just to make sure they're all OKAY. It would be the end of Wikipedia, digg, etc, etc... the end of the internet as we know it. Besides it's technically unfeasible. How many people would you have to hire to monitor the emails and instant messages of a few hundred million citizens?

I mean you're practically asking for Blockbuster to send an employee home with each R rated or adult movie rental customer. Really... Blockbusters fault if any adults show inappropriate material to a minor outside the store.

Price of freedom is eternal vigilance my friend. In order for everyone to enjoy their freedoms everybody has to be responsible for themselves and their own family. Of course the legal system is where we draw the lines, and in this particular case most Slashdot readers are well aware of what damage moving the line here would cause.

Re:I know...

[Ogive17]

playing devil's advocate...

Now I'll accept that it might not be ethical for a bar to continue serving someone who is wasted, at least without checking to see if they're driving, but unethical != illegal.
I believe it is illegal in some places to serve someone who is obviously drunk already. And before people start saying "it's the consumer's choice to keep drinking" think of this.. The last time you were wasted, did you get to the point where you said "oh, I think I'm drunk enough now, no more beer for me!" or was it more like "foiaeaf fuck wooo i'm drvnk... give me another!". You get to the point where you can't make sound decisions on your own.

But this has no relevance to myspace. You can't blame myspace, and you necessarily can't put all the blame on the parents either. One thing I haven't seen yet is blaming the girls who did this. I'm not sure how old they were, but by the time I was 8 I knew things I should not be doing. I didn't always heed that advice, but I knew it was wrong.

Re:I know...

[Slightly Askew]

Actually, the statement "those cases are bullshit" is accurate, but not the way you mean. It's bullshit in that this rarely happens.

My uncle got plastered at a bar, crashed into the back of a trailer parked along the side of the road, and died instantly. BAL was something crazy like .21. His brothers and sisters tried to sue the bar (they had to know he was way above the legal limit), and also the owner of the trailer (parked on the shoulder, overnight, barely off the road, no flashers or flares or little orange triangle signs). They got nothing from either party, and all they were suing for was the cost of the funeral!

I think that when you see news reports of someone getting a huge settlement, your natural reaction is to assume this happens all the time. My guess is for every one McDonald's coffee lawsuit won, there are 5,000 that are thrown out of court.

Re:I know...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a stupid law as well. It's a BAR. If you go in there and have a drink, you're not fit to drive.

Re:I know...

[maxume]

The proper relationships:

Bar->drunk driver->victim of drunk driver

My Space->online predator->victim of predator.

The two are quite comparable.

Re:I know...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no connection between alcohol sales (for immediate consumption) and the MySpace lawsuits. Serving an intoxicating substance to people at an establishment *does* create a legal obligation upon the owner not to serve those people too much. In fact, in order to get the license to operate an establishment selling alcohol for immediate consumption you explicitly agree it is your resposibility. Moral of the story: if you want to sell this drug alcohol, do not let your bar patrons drink too much of it. There is no connection between this and MySpace. And MySpace is certainly not responsible for what the people of the world do outside of MySpace, neither morally nor legally.

Re:I know...

[permawired]

Now I'll accept that it might not be ethical for a bar to continue serving someone who is wasted, at least without checking to see if they're driving, but unethical != illegal.

Right there... that hits the nail on the head as to one of the oldest and biggest problems with our government. The idea to legislate ethics. Not only is it dangerous it's also often most harmful to those who are the most ethical.

Bottom line... society needs to take deep breath, say it's going to be OK, and allow people to be responsible for their own actions. Yes, that was a period at the end of that last sentence.

Re:I know...

[smellsofbikes]

Okay, so where's the line? If your friend stumbles in, drunk, yelling about how his girlfriend just dumped him and he doesn't want to go on living, and asks you for a gun, and asks you to load it, and asks you to hold onto the barrel and keep it aimed at his head while he pulls the trigger -- are you largely liable for his death?
I'd say yes.
There isn't a line between nanny-state and personal responsibility, but a gradiation, and what we're discussing is where the line we feel it necessary to draw, should fall on that gradiation.
*I* think it's stupid to try and hold MySpace responsible for what happens there, any more than holding a pool hall responsible for a guy's savings loss when the woman he met there and subsequently married sues him for divorce and takes everything he has.
But when a bartender gives someone a drink when the person is unable to walk correctly, I think the bartender is somewhat responsible for what happens next. Not entirely: the bartender didn't start the person drinking. But the bartender did choose to keep giving the person alcohol, when generally speaking, people are not obligated to sell something just because they can.

Re:I know...

[DragonWriter]

Those cases are bullshit just like this is though. Individuals are responsible for their own actions... it's ridiculous to think that my actions (getting drunk, driving, getting in a wreck) can in any way involuntarily impose any sort of legal obligation on someone else (bartender, bar owner).

Your actions don't. Their actions — continuing to serve you drinks when that caused a foreseeable hazard to other people — impose liability on them. As you note, individuals are responsible for their own actions: here, the law agrees, individuals are responsible for forseeable harms caused to others by their own actions.

Re:I know...

[BiggerBoat]

"The last time you were wasted, did you get to the point where you said "oh, I think I'm drunk enough now, no more beer for me!"

I do this ALL. THE. TIME. In fact, I got an old friend angry with me recently because I cut myself off once I felt I was at that point.

But I suppose I'd be one of the first to admit that I am strange this way. I only wish there were more who were as "strange" as I.

Responsibility

[Kelson]

Just wondering... is it easier to win a lawsuit against a communications company than to win a criminal case against the actual predators? No, wait, according to TFA, at least one of the abusers has already been convicted.

So... where do the phone company, post office, manufacturers of digital cameras, and Dell fit into this?

Re:Responsibility

[PingSpike]

Dude, that predator guy doesn't have any money, at least not millions anyway. And even if the lawsuit was successful, he's going to be in prison for a long time. You can't garnish a guys wages when he makes 2cents an hour stamping license plates! Newscorp however, they have lots of money...coupled with the fact that most judges barely understand technology and could be potentially confused into thinking that 'the internets' is responsible...you've got a recipe for a fat cash settlement!

I mean, why else would you have children if you couldn't ignore them until they got themselves into a harmful situation and then seek to profit from your own inability to parent them properly?

Re:Responsibility

[jkiol]

You don't get money from a criminal lawsuit, they are after money.

Suing MySpace

[Anonymous Coward]

What? Mummy and Daddy didn't teach their nubile young ones to NOT MEET UP WITH STRANGERS? Shite! What is the world coming to?

Same Old Crap

[Anonymous Coward]

Who else is sick and tired of seeing irresponsible parents try to sue the richest .com they can find when their kid gets victimized by some creep online? Hey, I've got this wacky idea, it's called *paying attention to what your kids are doing*. Or not having them in the first place.

You failed

[Anonymous Coward]

You failed to do my job for me by protecting my child from his/her own stupidity. Now you must make me rich.

Re:You failed

[psykocrime]

You failed to do my job for me by protecting my child from his/her own stupidity. Now you must make me rich.


Well said.

Re:You failed

[PFI_Optix]

Correction:

You failed to do my job for me by protecting my child from my own inability to monitor their activity and teach them how to make good decisions. Now you must make me rich.

Re:You failed

[Anonymous Coward]

objection granted

Re:You failed

[DikSeaCup]

It sucks to be smart I guess ... too intelligent to get myself into a situation where I can blame someone else for something bad happening to me and sue them for all they have.

Re:You failed

[--daz--]

You're absolutely right about this. I do have one comment/corollary to this though:

It's extremely difficult to be a 'good parent' and reasonable monitor your child's behavior on the Internet these days.

The technology to allow parents to do a 'reasonable' job without being 'Big Brother' (as another poster put it) is simply not there.

It's going to take some kind of watershed case for OS manufacturers, application makers, web site builders, etc to finally get the picture that they need to open up portholes into their software to allow parents to gather information about their children in order to make informed decisions.

For the most part today, the choice is either all or nothing. Content filters and firewalls go a long way, but they're still not 'intelligent' enough and don't grant parents enough insight and meaningful information to make the decisions necessary to allow their children access to the Internet without throwing them to the wolves.

It's getting better (with MacOS X and Vista parental controls and better filters, etc) but it's still a LONG way off from what needs to be done.

What needs to be done, in the end? Hrm... now there's an idea for a great start-up company!

Crap... I, uh... gotta go. You guys keep debating about MySpace, I have a VC pitch to write :)

Re:You failed

[BlazeMiskulin]

"It's extremely difficult to be a 'good parent' and reasonable monitor your child's behavior on the Internet these days."

Actually, it's not. The catch is that you have to be a "good parent" from the beginning: teach your children to be responsible, cautious, skeptical, and realistic when dealing with new situations, and you won't need to monitor them all the time. It's okay to talk to anyone online. It's not okay to give out personal information or go see them without finding out who they really are first.

Common sense. No net-nanny or big brother needed.

Re:You failed

[Geak]

Once again - I have to agree that parental irresponsibility is the cause of these sorts of problems.

Would you let Michael Jackson babysit your kids?
or for that matter - in cases of parents suing video game companies, would you let Charles Manson babysit them?
If the answer to these questions is no, then why do parents expect the internet, tv, and videogames to be their babysitter?

I think the parents should be thrown in jail for negligence.

Re:You failed

[a.d.trick]

You failed to do my job for me by protecting my child from my own inability to monitor their activity and teach them how to make good decisions. Now you must make me rich.

I'm going to guess you've never actually had children. I haven't either, but from looking at my parent (who are certainly not bad) and my siblings and I, I can tell you it's a lot more complicated. Parents can't control everything their children do. If they tried, they would certainly do more harm than good.

In the end, the parents have to do the best job they can with training their children and hope the children make the right decisions latter on. Sooner or later, you have to relinquish control (the sooner the better, at least you'll still be around if they screw up), and when they're given the freedom to choose, that means they might choose badly. There's no formula for it, even model children can end up screwing themselves up.

Re:You failed

[tom2275]

I agree completely. Parent's shouldn't have to worry about what their kids are doing when they're in their own room. Nothing bad will happen to them there. Its only when they meet someone online and go meet them outside the home that a problem exist. MySpace is just a communication medium, like a phone. I'm sure AT&T has a much longer list of victims who arranged to meet an attacker on that medium.

Re:You failed

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we all know that children never go through the motions of learning, and then go do whatever they wanted to anyway.

Seriously, I know I thought I knew better than my parents while I was growing up. My tactic was to do what I had to so they would shut up, and make all the mistakes they told me not to make.

Congrats if you have model kids who respect you and listen to you all the time, but that's just not exactly common.

In this particular case, it's a matter of knowing what to look for. To kids, they think they know how to spot an untrustworthy person. No teenage girl with the hots for a 28 year old wants to be told that he's bad news. Won't matter what you tell her, quite often, a girl who has made up her mind won't change it just because her parents say to.

Re:You failed

[Anonymous Coward]

Just as government has conditioned us to do.

(To clarify: the more laws, and the more lawsuits, the more business for government.)

Re:You failed

[Anonymous Coward]

Correction: I found a way to leverage the coercive power of government in my favor, while sweeping my own personal responsibility under the carpet, as I have been conditioned since the day I was born.

Re:You failed

[mpe]

It's going to take some kind of watershed case for OS manufacturers, application makers, web site builders, etc to finally get the picture that they need to open up portholes into their software to allow parents to gather information about their children in order to make informed decisions.

Which could easily make any problem worst. i.e. how do they verify that the users of these "portholes" arn't child molesters. Especially given that large proportion of child molesters are parents in the first place...

Re:You failed

[mpe]

In this particular case, it's a matter of knowing what to look for. To kids, they think they know how to spot an untrustworthy person.

This is hardly unique to "kids" plenty of people who think they know how to spot untrustworthy people turn out to be unable to do so...

No teenage girl with the hots for a 28 year old wants to be told that he's bad news. Won't matter what you tell her, quite often, a girl who has made up her mind won't change it just because her parents say to.

Indeed her parents trying to change her mind may make her less likely to change it. Especially if their behaviour appears irrational to her.

Re:You failed

[Anonymous Coward]

The word is "sustained." Objection sustained.

I have been online since I was 11

[Com2Kid]

I knew better than to post any personal information.

My real name did not appear on the web until I was 18.

This is a story of Darwinism in action.

The parents should be sued for not raising their kids right...

Re:I have been online since I was 11

[RingDev]

An interesting thought. Could the perpetrators sue the parent's for entrapment?

"You raised your kid to be a sex offender magnet!"

-Rick

Re:I have been online since I was 11

[Billosaur]

An interesting thought. Could the perpetrators sue the parent's for entrapment?

IANAL, but I believe the answer is no. That defense seldom works when the police actual try entrapping people -- I doubt it would even apply here, since the child would probably have very little knowledge of how their behavior would affect the predator's legal status, i.e. the commission of a crime. The fact is, these predators have intent to take the actions they take, knowing full well in most cases that there are laws protecting minors.

Mind you, MySpace I believe cooperates with law enforcement agencies to trap people like this. But it is not their job to do the policing themselves. They can write disclaimers about providing personal information on-line and caution people against revealing information which is normally private, but in the end, it's the user that has the responsibility to use good judgement. In these cases, I think it's safe to say good judgement was not used, mainly because the kids were not taught good judgement by their parents.

Re:I have been online since I was 11

[arkanes]

Not for entrapment, but maybe the relatives of the sex offender could sue under the law of attractive nuisance. I know, I know, it's a whole new game of blame the victim, but if you let your daughter meet random people from the internet for sex, you *are* contributing to a public hazard...

Re:I have been online since I was 11

[lukas84]

since the child would probably have very little knowledge of how their behavior would affect the predator's legal status, i.e. the commission of a crime A 13 year old camwhore usually knows what she is doing.

Re:I have been online since I was 11

[Billosaur]

That's a whole different thing. If the child knows he/she is doing something that would entice the predator, then perhaps that would be a mitigating factor, but somehow I doubt it.

Re:I have been online since I was 11

[RingDev]

An interesting thought. Wikilink: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractive_nuisance_d octrine it sounds almost like it would be more usable in a situation with a divorced couple where a disgruntled parent of the child could sue the other parent. Although the word 'trespass' might be hard to interpret to mean 'unsupervised use of computer'.

It's atleast something though.

-Rick

Re:I have been online since I was 11

[lukas84]

Perhaps my knowledge of MySpace is a bit biased, but whenever i see "MySpace" i think "teenage camwhores", and not "innocent children".

Re:I have been online since I was 11

[maxume]

It isn't Darwinism in the way you are implying. The girls from these families aren't dead; if anything, the abuse experience is going to make them more likely to make poor choices, like having lots of kids that they can barely support. The fun part of evolution is that it doesn't select for some abstract better, it selects for a particular environment.

wooo

[Anonymous Coward]

geez more shit were the *parents* dont do their job and lets the kids go nutz on the net... then when something bad happens it *someone elses fault*

Parents Tell Your Children...

[e4g4]

...Not to agree to meet with some stranger they met online! No matter how "kewl" he seems. How difficult is that?

Re:Parents Tell Your Children...

[delt0r]

So how often did you disobey your parents? Say just once, or lots of times. Were not talking about a 5 year old. We are talking about 13+ something and doing what parents tell them is not a strong point in that age group.

Re:Parents Tell Your Children...

[arkanes]

Even the most rebellious of my peers when I was that age knew better than to blame the owner of the pool hall when they let the 40 year old alcoholics who hung out there feel them up in exchange for cigarettes.

Re:Parents Tell Your Children...

[kalirion]

A simple "Don't do it because I forbid you to do it" won't cut it. Get a hold of a made-for-tv movie where a teen gets raped/murdered by their online "buddy", and show it to the kids. If they still refuse to see the light, it's Darwin time.

Re:Parents Tell Your Children...

[dr_dank]

Get a hold of a made-for-tv movie where a teen gets raped/murdered by their online "buddy"

Lifetime TV movies and ABC Afterschool Specials aren't exactly credible sources of information. Material like that loses potency when they collide with reality. A kid that smokes a bowl and finds out that they're only a danger to twinkies isn't going to take that crap seriously any more. A kid who meets another kid off Myspace and finds out that he/she is a kid like them who isn't an ex-con that is going to make them their sex slave.

Kids will always find a way around their parents to do things that they disapprove of. If you can raise your child with a good head on their shoulders so that they can survive to maturity when Mom or Dad aren't around to stop them from doing dumb things, then you've done 9/10ths of your job as a parent.

bah

[joe 155]

I don't like myspace, or news corp, but this is crazy. Why doesn't myspace sue the parents for not educating and protecting their child. Its a big scary world out there, and you're not doing your kids any favours by 1) allowing them to use the whole of the internet unsupervised and 2)not educating them about the dangers which will be faced online and in "the real world" - I was always told "dont talk to strangers, don't follow them or accept gifts from them", why didn't they teach their kids this?

Over and above that it's a fairly socking indictment on them as parents that their children don't tell them where they are going and who they are meeting. That seems like a basic element of trust

shifting blame

[night_flyer]

Its not the criminal, its the gun
Its not the owner, its the pit bull
Its not the parents, its the website

Re:shifting blame

[Anonymous Coward]

Its not the owner, its the pit bull

Actually, it's both, most pit bulls are violent animals. And if you don't think so, you're deluding yourself.

Re:shifting blame

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the crackhead thugs, it's society / wealthy white men.

Re:shifting blame

[night_flyer]

Speaking of delusional...get your head out of the media's sensationalist ass and actually do some research...

Re:shifting blame

[rcastro0]

Its not the criminal, its the gun
Its not the owner, its the pit bull
Its not the parents, its the website

I guess we could go on playing this shifting game...
Its not social problems and broken homes, its the criminal.
Its not the "macho/mean m*f*" sub-culture, its the pitbull owner.
Its not modern professional demands in husbands and _wifes_, its the parents.

So much for trying to comprehend the world. No wonder there are still
religions around.

Re:shifting blame

[aXis100]

I guess we could go on playing this shifting game...
Its not modern professional demands in husbands and _wifes_, its the parents.

You're right,

It's not the self centered need for money and "things", it's the modern professional demands in husbands and _wifes_

Re:shifting blame

[Servo]

All dog breeds can and will bite. Larger bulkier dogs like pit bulls (which is not a true breed, btw, its a classification used for several different Terriers) have more muscular strength that could in theory lead to more serious bites, but are no more likely to attack someone than any other dog. Statistically speaking, which ever the highest percentage of breed is in any given area, that's the breed that is going to have the highest percentage of reported attacks.

Also factoring in general hysteria on the subject and lack of knowledge of dog breeds, a lot of people call any Terrier a "pit bull", any black dog a "Rottweiler", and any brown dog a "German Shepperd".

In our view...

[Anonymous Coward]

'In my view, the parents waited entirely too long to attempt to institute meaningful levels of intelligence and social awareness that effectively increase the safety of their underage children.' Responsible parents everywhere are seeking physical damages 'in the millions of bitch-slaps'.

By that logic...

[Apocalypse111]

Hey, I feel sorry for the kids who got hurt, but this is exactly the same sort of thing as trying to sue a gun manufacturer because someone you know got shot. MySpace doesn't rape people (at least, not physically), people rape people. These ass-hat parents need to be taken to court themselves as they've proven they're unfit parents by not supervising their internet use and their travel. Oh wait, that would mean that parents are responsible for their children...

Where are the parents in these situations

[jackelfish]

I am in no way condoning the behavior of the predators skulking around the internet, but I really do not see how this is My Space's responsibility. I know of several families that have their computer situated off in the basement or in their child's room and will leave them unattended for hours with their high speed connection and webcam. I have no idea where the families in this story kept their computers, but a little diligence on a parents part, in my opinion, goes a long way. If the kids stumble onto these situations and get entrapped by these people, how is suing News Corp going to make any difference at the end of the day? There will always be sexual predators out there and there will always be children looking for attention. I think that the solution to this problem is already at home.

How about a class-action lawsuit???

[Twilight1]

A class action lawsuit against parents who don't take any responsability for raising their children, but instead insist that it's *everyone else's* responsibility... and then sue every time little Billy or Suzy wanders into unsupervised trouble...

Oh wait. Lawyers don't like class-action lawsuits unless big companies with lots of money are involved. And, it makes too much sense. Oh well.

Dear parents: Stop waxing your cars in your 2 car garage, showing off the boat, planning your vacation home, watching TV, and worrying about your next career move to keep up with the Jonses down the street, and instead... spend a little time with your 2.5 children. And no, buying them a dog to keep them "out of your hair" doesn't count as "meaningful family activity." Besides... you'll just abandon or neglect the dog as soon as it outgrows the puppy stage.

-Twi

Re:How about a class-action lawsuit???

[jdigriz]

This is an interesting idea, but how would we identify these irresponsible parents? Talk about the mother of all fishing expeditions. And once we have sued them, and won, now we've only made things worse for the kids who have to put up with the parents in the first place. Not only do their parents suck, but now they're poor as well, and are probably blaming the kids for their problems since they refuse to take any of their own responsibility. Sounds like a good recipe to fill the prisons.

Of course it's MySpace's fault!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Armed thugs from MySpace came to the homes of the familes, forced them to have Internet access, made the kids sign up for MySpace pages, sent the predators after their kids, drove the kids secretly to see the pedophiles, and...

What? They didn't?

Oh...

Well, I guess the family members are pretty low wattage bulbs, then.

pathetic.

[Anonymous Coward]

oh it's 'myspace's fault.
i could get stalked/abducted/raped/killed/tortured/verbally abused by meeting someone online via craigslist, makeoutclub, facebook, facethejury, yahoo personals or any of the other billions of websites that allow interaction. hell same goes for irc/any chat client (and that was even brought out on the media as this same issue before).

whats the difference here?
myspace's popularity.

you know, i was going to start on an anti-parent tangent (why arent they monitoring their childs net usage, etc), but then i realized that its a moot point. generally, parents arent raising their children /at all/ anymore. they're too engulfed in 'making it' in the world. they'd rather pay 300+ dollars per week to have some random stranger(s) bring their children up. they'd rather let their 'well spent' tax money go to letting some random psycho in the public school system raise their child a minimum of 194 days a year, 8 hours a day.

as a child growing up in the bible belt, i always thought to myself, 'how sad, all these kids that are overprotected. they cant watch certain channels, cant stay out past x o'clock, cant go to the movies' etc... now, after going through it myself, i actually understand it.

im not by any far means an islamist, but their views on jahiliyah are dead on.
if i ever have children, i wont ruin their lives by letting them grow up in this american facade.

developing technologies?

[JeanBaptiste]

like what, a keylogger?

We're suing because we suck at parenting

[DarkBlackFox]

What sort of parents are so out of touch with their children (especially underage), that they allow this sort of thing to happen? Parents should always be aware of where their kids are and take some friggin responsibility, rather than let TV and the internet raise them. "I left my kid in front of the computer while I went out shopping with some friends, assuming my kid was responsible enough to make mature decisions at a young age... now my kid is in danger because the interweb is evil so I'm suing."

Computer != parent. Take an interest in your kids and their activities, and they won't have to resort to meeting up with "online friends" for attention.

Re:We're suing because we suck at parenting

[Anonymous Coward]

No they're suing for $millions of bux$. It even says so in the summary.

Why do so many people think that the parents are trying to make Myspace do their job? People on Slashdot aren't that naive are they?

Re:We're suing because we suck at parenting

[SunniKay]

What sort of parents are so out of touch with their children (especially underage), that they allow this sort of thing to happen? Parents should always be aware of where their kids are and take some friggin responsibility, rather than let TV and the internet raise them. I couldn't agree more!

If you have to work two jobs, and have little time at home with your kids, don't leave them on their own. Take them to a safe place that holds the same values you do. A place that can teach them and answer their questions when you aren't there. Whatever you do, no matter how busy you are, always make time for them, and remind them that they are important, and keep communication open. In my mind these are basic family values, and the parenting that children need. If you can't provide this, than don't become a parent.

This doesn't mean that "Ted Bundy's" won't surface, but if more parents took responsibility for their children and a more active role as parents, I feel that a great deal of the juvenile crime rate would not exist.

A better idea

[mangu]

Send the parents to jail. If someone facilitates a crime by looking the other way while it's being done, the law defines it as being an "accessory to crime". And that's exactly what those parents are.

Re:A better idea

[Tim C]

I think you'll find you have to knowingly look the other way; not being aware of it at all isn't a crime, although may still leave you open to some sort of negligence charge if you *should* have known about it for whatever reason.

Sad

[pembo13]

I don't like MySpace, but for different reasons. Suing them for this of all this is plain stupid. Or did MySpace buy the kid a computer and internet connection, and setup their MySpace account and email account for them? If MySpace did all that then I guess they may be liable.

Trust or tryst? :)

[Quiet_Desperation]

Probably not the same situation (I don't know if the girls knew the guys were older men), but when I was 17, I had a short affair with a 34 year old woman (a neighbor two houses down). I had a near perfect relationship with my parents, but do you think I told them about it? To this day they don't know.

Re:Trust or tryst? :)

[joe 155]

Hell, you should tell them, if my son picked up a 34 year old woman when he was 17 I'd be proud.

Other than that I'd say that the girls were 14 and 15... I know I was a bit of a shut-in but when I was 14 I didn't even go to town on my own (although that was through choice because I hated getting busses) but if I did, or when I went to a friends house, I would always tell my parents where I was going, who with, and when I was going to be back. I would expect the same from my kids and it doesn't seem like this is an unreasonable thing to ask from kids.

Re:Trust or tryst? :)

[Johnny5000]

when I went to a friends house, I would always tell my parents where I was going, who with, and when I was going to be back. I would expect the same from my kids and it doesn't seem like this is an unreasonable thing to ask from kids.

I'm sure these girls didn't tell their parents they went off to the Motel 6 to meet some 40 year old pervert from the internet.

The girls probably told their parents they were going to their friends house, or else they just snuck out of the house after the parents went to sleep.
Teenagers lie to their parents all the time.

Re:Trust or tryst? :)

[Cervantes]

Probably not the same situation (I don't know if the girls knew the guys were older men), but when I was 17, I had a short affair with a 34 year old woman (a neighbor two houses down). I had a near perfect relationship with my parents, but do you think I told them about it? To this day they don't know.

Jimmy.... is that you?

Please tell me you mean 2 houses NORTH of us (the nice widow Lichtoff) and not 2 houses SOUTH of us (Aunt Flo).
And I hope to God it's not 2 houses WEST of us (strange Mr Flueffenpaenten)

Lets talk when you get home.
-Dad

How is MySpace like a daycare center?

[netbuzz]

They're exactly alike, at least according to the Texas lawyer who who filed this asinine suit. He says "these virtual sites are no different" than a daycare center in terms of their responsibilities to keep children safe. I went off on a bit of a rant this morning on my blog trying to explain the difference to him, if you're interested:
http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1057 4

Re:How is MySpace like a daycare center?

[jfodale]

I get the feeling that this lawyer has no idea how an internet site actually operates.

In Other News:

[derrickh]

Gravity Sued by Old People: 'Without the 'weak force' they never would have falled and would have no need to get back up'

The Sun Sued by Skin Cancer Victims: 'The Sun knew it was hot, and still continued burning'

The Internets sued by George Bush: 'President demands and end to "plural network" joke'

Attractive Women Sued by Geeks: 'Nerds demand compensation for sweat stained shirts and ruined pants'

D

Re:In Other News:

[unsigned integer]

You forgot:

Beef Suppliers : "Old ladies tired of trying to find it."

Re:In Other News:

[wolfgang_spangler]

Beef Suppliers : "Old ladies tired of trying to find it." Your comment was as lame as that ad campaign was.

Weighing the options.

[Kelson]

This story is a great example of what happens when two values come into conflict. When MySpace comes up on Slashdot, the general tone is usually one of dismissal, disregard, and disgust. Most people at Slashdot -- at least, the most vocal ones -- look down on MySpace for technical, aesthetic, social or political reasons.

But frivolous lawsuits are even more reviled, particularly those which could produce a chilling effect on free speech. (Taken to an extreme, the idea that MySpace is at fault would lead to every online site with so much as a guestbook being liable for anything that happens as a result of people posting there.)

The result: Every comment I've seen on this thread (ok, there are only about 20 of them) has been in MySpace's favor. Not what you'd expect from Slashdot, until you factor in the bigger picture.

Re:Weighing the options.

[necro2607]

No kidding. Just because their website looks ugly or breaks a ton of HTML/CSS/whatever standards doesn't mean it's okay for frivolous lawsuits to take place against them.

Re:Weighing the options.

[Aqua_boy17]

I think it's also a case of us all being sick of frivilous litigation. We've had it with the "I'm a fat tard, let's go sue McDonalds, Wendys, KFC..." type lawsuits and this one falls in that category, IMHO. The /. community is not so much defending MySpace as it is condemning these type of ridiculous suits that do nothing but enrich the trial attorneys. And until people who bring frivilous litigation to the courts are held accountable for wasting the Court's (read Taxpayer's) time and money, it's not going to change.

On another level, I've also always had something of a problem with the "It takes a village to raise a child" mentality. It's one thing for a community to work together to promote a safe environment for kids. But it's quite another to expect the schools, your neighbors, television, the web, Wii's and whatever else to raise your children for you. It's the parent's responsibility and the most important one that they will ever have. Generally speaking, bad things don't happen nearly as often to children who's parents are actively involved in their lives.

Re:Weighing the options.

[dr_dank]

The result: Every comment I've seen on this thread (ok, there are only about 20 of them) has been in MySpace's favor. Not what you'd expect from Slashdot, until you factor in the bigger picture.

Indeed. Some screechy ignorant asshole who believes that the internet is trying to fuck their children and thinks they deserve a free bag of money is far more distasteful than Myspace pages that could give Helen Keller a seizure.

Re:Weighing the options.

[syousef]

In other words it's like 2 idiots in an argument. One says something mildly stupid and you laugh. The other says something dangerously stupid that affects you and your ears prick up.

Re:Weighing the options.

[vga_init]

I don't see a conflict; Slashdot doesn't hate Myspace so much as it hates people who use Myspace. In this case, the villians are BOTH Myspace users AND frivolous lawsuit filers. That means they are quite possibly the worst people on Earth in the eyes of Slashdot (with possible exceptions of spammers, crackpot scientists, Steve Ballmer, republicans, lawyers who are not Lawrence Lessig, some European countries, various christian denominations, the United States government, anyone associated with the RIAA, and whoever owns firmware to wireless ethernet devices).

Re:Weighing the options.

[smellsofbikes]

Dude. Even nerds make fun of the homely nerd, until a stupid asshole tries to beat him up.

Re:Weighing the options.

[crabpeople]

"until you factor in the bigger picture."

This is what gets modded to +4? You have basically said NOTHING in your post. Looking at the bigger picture gives a more accurate.. PICTURE. NO SHIT EH??

Because it's just never *your* fault

[lorenlal]

I figured it was only a matter of time before this happened. Has AOL been sued for their chatrooms? Actually, yes they have...

One thing that upsets me is that MySpace is already taking steps to correct this.

But it doesn't matter because these parents are teaching their kids that it's okay to not take responsibility for their own actions. Do whatever you want, and if something goes bad, sue someone for letting you screw up. It's not your fault that you stuck your hand in the outlet, there was nothing stopping you.

We are now operating on the assumption that people lack the basic instinct of self preservation. It's one thing to lie or mislead. It's another to give people something with good intentions, but hold them responsible when others abuse it. It's a whole other thing when the owners are already trying to curb the abuse and are doing what I consider *due diligence.*

It's stupid, and these parents are stupid for blaming the service for their kids' screwups. I'm sorry this happened to your kids. I'm sorry that *you* didn't teach your kids that strangers can be dangerous. Own up and hold those actually responsible accountable.

Re:Because it's just never *your* fault

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to point out that the assumption around here seems to be that underage girls were raped by dirty old perverts.

The article states that this suit was filled by the parents of 14 and 15 year old girls. It also mention a similar suit following the sexual assault (note that the guy was not convicted of rape) by a 19 years old (the only perpetrator whose age is given).

Beyond the sue-happy bad parents issue, another problem is that our society doesn't want to realize that 14 year old girls are sexually mature. Quite a few of them will get sexually involved, most of them with older blokes, simply because guys mature later, and inevitably some of them will be 18 to 20.

Re:Because it's just never *your* fault

[kimgkimg]

One thing that upsets me is that MySpace is already taking steps to correct this.

Yeah they can include a 'I am not a predator' checkbox on their EULA page.

Re:Because it's just never *your* fault

[Servo]

We are now operating on the assumption that people lack the basic instinct of self preservation.

Given the reality of the modern world, I'd have to say a great number of people do lack basic self preservation insticts. They've been taught that they need not worry about a thing. The government is there to protect you from anything and everything, so you can go about worrying about other more important things.

Zomg, think of the children!

[daeg]

I'm should have a kid just so I can get rich off of my own bad parenting skills.

Re:Zomg, think of the children!

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm should have a kid just so I can get rich off of my own bad parenting skills."

Teach them poor grammar while you're at it.

Am i the only person..

[thegoogler]

who sees this as the parents just looking for someone to blame other than themselves?

"o no it can't be my fault, i wasn't there when they were talking.. it was myspace!"

Or alternatively

[cyber-vandal]

I left my kids in front of the computer because I was working two jobs to put food on the table and keep them clothed because corporate America thinks I don't need a living wage.

Re:Or alternatively

[psykocrime]

I left my kids in front of the computer because I was working two jobs to put food on the table and keep them clothed because corporate America thinks I don't need a living wage.

If you couldn't afford to support a family - to the level you believe appropriate - then maybe you should have thought twice about having kids in the first place?

Re:Or alternatively

[SaDan]

Or move to a place where the cost of living isn't so outrageous.

I am the sole provider for my family, and I live 65 miles from where I work. Yeah, that commute sure sucks some days, but it beats the hell out of a mortgage that's five times what I currently have.

If I lived close to work, my wife and I would both have to work full-time just to afford the house, let alone put food on the table.

The point is, my wife and I decided that she would be a stay-at-home mom long before we started having kids. People are too freakin' selfish and irreponsible these days. I almost think there should be a license to have children.

Re:Or alternatively

[giorgiofr]

Everyone else seems to be doing fine, maybe it's just you who sucks.

Re:Or alternatively

[cyber-vandal]

I'm doing fine thanks but a lot of people I know aren't as prices rise and wages are capped. I was parodying the previous poster who also didn't use quotation marks but his parenting skills weren't called into question; why are mine?

Re:Or alternatively

[giorgiofr]

I'm sorry then, I thought you were being serious. Anyway I wasn't criticizing your parenting skills. Rather, I was pointing out it doesn't make sense to whine about wages like I thought you were doing.

Re:Or alternatively

[cyber-vandal]

I was presenting an alternative and possible reason for lack of parental supervision based on some of the families I know.

Craziness..

[Anonymous Coward]

There's actually a gigantic billboard along the highway a few miles from my home. It's an ad from an attorney looking for victims of internet predators.
I always wondered who they'd sue - now I know.

"Lawsuit" is much easier to say than "responsible"

[RyoShin]

I know this isn't an original idea on Slashdot, but perhaps, you know, the parents could have monitored the children! But that's crazy talk, because then they might not have been able to watch the entire two hour season premiere of American Idol or follow their stocks. The internet, government, and everyone involed in those things should be worried about the life that the parent brought into the world, not the parent! After all, they created the kid, shouldn't that be enough?

All of the things that MySpace has been sued for could easily have been prevented with good parenting. Where are your kids going? Who are they talking to online? Sure, they can lie, but that's why you keep tabs. When they get back, ask them if they had a good time at some other place. If they respond postively, you've just caught them in a lie. If not, you can fake like it's old-people confusion. You can't always protect them, though, so educate them. Make sure they understand that they can meet a lot of cool people on the internet, but some of these people want to hurt them. It's okay to talk to someone, but if someone wants to meet them you (the parent) have to get involved.

Here's a newsflash to these un-parents: Myspace isn't the only place where this kind of thing can be done! It is, however, one of the higher profile and richer websites, hence the lure. The potential for these acts have been around since the Internet has. I can recall being sent a picture of some guy's dick in an e-mail when I was 13 (8 years ago) or so because I gave him my e-mail address thinking he was going to send me cheat codes for a video game. At that time I had to go to the library to chat, because my parents wouldn't let me chat online at home. So I wound up in an unsupervised environment where I could have given out more information about myself or location if someone had taken me into their confidence.

While you're at it, why not sue the mall, store, or park where the pedo and kid met up? After all, the kid was there and the mall/store/park didn't bother to watch your kid for you, either.

What happened to the kids was horrible, and from the article at least some of those who actually did the harm have been locked up. This is good. But what happened on MySpace can (and probably does) happen on any other social site, in various large-scale chat rooms, even through e-mail groups. They shouldn't be sued for it.

Victim mentality

[Jadecristal]

I'm getting REALLY tired of the victim mentality that people seem to have ANY time something goes wrong in their lives. Nothing that happens to them is EVER their fault, nor a result of choices they made. In this case, the parents filing suits can't acknowledge that THEY failed to teach, watch over, and ultimately protect their children; it must have been someone else's fault for not doing it for them.

The failure of people to take responsibility for what they do - along with the general sense of entitlement that people seem to have for everything from "free" food to "free" retirement benefits at the hands of the government - is speeding not just their own demise, but the demise of everyone's freedoms. More laws get enacted to prevent so-called frivolous lawsuits, preventing people who NEED to sue from suing, and the government takes more and more money to fund "just one more social program, 'for the children.'"

*rant mode off, flamesuit mode on*

Re:Victim mentality

[psykocrime]

The failure of people to take responsibility for what they do - along with the general sense of entitlement that people seem to have for everything from "free" food to "free" retirement benefits at the hands of the government - is speeding not just their own demise, but the demise of everyone's freedoms. More laws get enacted to prevent so-called frivolous lawsuits, preventing people who NEED to sue from suing, and the government takes more and more money to fund "just one more social program, 'for the children.'"


Well said. I personally could not agree more.

Re:Victim mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe these parents should be prosecuted. After all, their kids contacted a rapist and met up with him and apparently they had no idea until afterward. This is clearly negligence, which is criminal if it's bad enough. Too bad MySpace can't prosecute them. Maybe they can countersue on behalf of the kids, with damages going into a trust fund or something.

More accurately...

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess suing for millions of dollars is better than educating their kids not to accept candy from strangers...

...or hours of great sex

Money money money

[Dachannien]

They would have sued the abusers, but incarcerated sex offenders aren't known for their deep pockets.

Ba dum bum.

How?

[Kelson]

• How does an online chat service verify that someone is not lying about his age? Require a photo? Too easy to submit someone else's. Credit card = adult, no credit card = minor? Kids an grab their parents' cards. Adults can pretend they don't have one. Trivia questions about pup culture in the 1970s and today, to see which ones they get right? Have each subscriber walk into the local MySpace office to get verified in person? They can send someone else in and use their account.
• How does an online chat services verify that someone is not a sexual predator? Do a background check on every one of those 100 million members? At best you can determine that someone is not a convicted sex offender, but even that assumes they're providing their real name.

Finally!

[trippedn]

It's about time someone did a cleanup of the MySpace whores! :D

get rich quick

[dcskier]

1) have kids 2) be a bad parent 3) profit!

A possible solution for parents

[Hoi Polloi]

Technology giveth and technology taketh away. Unless your kid is especially Windows PC savvy just do this:

Open C:\WINNT or WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts in notepad
Append these lines:
# block myspace.com host names
127.0.0.1 log.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 browseusers.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 classifieds.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 collect.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 events.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 favorites.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 forum.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 groups.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 home.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 invite.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 linux.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 login.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 message.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 messages.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 music.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 mx2.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 myspace.com
127.0.0.1 ns1.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 ns2.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 profile.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 rio.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 search.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 vids.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 viewmorepics.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 vmta01.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 vmta02.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 vmta03.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 vmta04.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 vmta05.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 vmta06.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 vmta07.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 vmta08.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 vmta09.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 vmta10.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 vmta11.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 vmta12.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 vmta13.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 www.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 www1.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 videos.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 mail.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 signup.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 security.myspace.com

Done!

Hell, while you are there add this one too: 127.0.0.1 ads.doubleclick.com

I got this from: http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com/forum/interne t/26149-how-block-myspace-com.html

Re:A possible solution for parents

[eneville]

Technology giveth and technology taketh away. Unless your kid is especially Windows PC savvy just do this:
 
Open C:\WINNT or WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts in notepad
Append these lines:
# block myspace.com host names
....

snip...
Done!
 
Hell, while you are there add this one too: 127.0.0.1 ads.doubleclick.com
 
I got this from: http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com/forum/interne t/26149-how-block-myspace-com.html
  thats a stupid way to do it. that means pages with that content take a while to time out, because there may not be a web server running on the localhost. why not put a dns server on your system that responds with NXDOMAIN, which makes the connections instantly close because they cannot be resolved.

Re:A possible solution for parents

[hyperstation]

maybe if your kid's iq is near room temperature. my 5 year old would figure this out before long, and probably yours too. children act dumb sometimes, but they're pretty smart.

Re:A possible solution for parents

[Hoi Polloi]

It was just meant to be a quick and dirty solution. Not as elaborate as adding a dns server.

I've never had time out issues doing this to block ad servers though.

Re:A possible solution for parents

[aXis100]

They wont timeout. If there is no webserver running on localhost, a "Port Unreachable" ICMP message will be returned instantly and the connection will close.

Re:A possible solution for parents

[eneville]

maybe if your kid's iq is near room temperature. my 5 year old would figure this out before long, and probably yours too. children act dumb sometimes, but they're pretty smart. thats why one must prevent DNS lookups outside of your network and ensure that no one can connect to something within the network that's a DNS server also, other than the one that the firewall permits.

this can be done though using /30 subnets and a firewall project. providing that everything sticks to this you're all right. it can create some congestion at the firewall though.

Sued

[Joebert]

Maybe it's time to review the system of awarding money to victims.

When's the last time you heard of a victim doing anything decent with the money ?
I can think of a few people I've met personally that just squandered the money away.
One girl was awarded nearly 3/4 of a million dollars when a correctional officer raped her while she visited her boyfriend in jail, you know what she did with it ?
Her and her new boyfriend smoked crack with it & frittered it away in about a year.

I'm not saying it's not saddening that theese things happen, but is giving theese people an easier means of self destruction after the fact such a good idea ?

Re:Sued

[kalirion]

One girl was awarded nearly 3/4 of a million dollars when a correctional officer raped her while she visited her boyfriend in jail, you know what she did with it ?
Her and her new boyfriend smoked crack with it & frittered it away in about a year.

That hardly seems like a frivolous lawsuit to me. You could use the same argument for lottery winnings - when's the last time you heard of a jackpot winner doing something good with their money?

Re:Sued

[Joebert]

lottery jackpot of 5RMB million (US$620,000) has donated all of the money to charity. Surnamed Wang, the man is a retired worker with the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps in Changji. "My only wish to make use of the prize for myself is to buy a new radio," Wang was quoted by the Xinjiang Economic Daily as saying. On November 21, when Wang arrived at the lottery complex in Urumqi to receive his prize, he donated the first batch of rmb500,000 to a charity project aimed at financing schooling of impoverished students. Wang donated the remaining RMB3.5 million to charity affairs through a Catholic organization, sources with the Xinjiang Welfare Lottery Center said.

http://www.lotterypost.com/thread/123934.htm?q=sha lini

It takes Wang to do somthing like that.

Re:Sued

[RightSaidFred99]

Really the civil system should sicken most Americans, who have this ridiculous idea that the world should be fair.

Is it fair if some billionaire grabs his secretary's tits and has to pay her $5 million, but some other woman gets raped in the streets by some poor scumbag and doesn't get a penny? Person A gets maimed by terrorism and doesn't get a penny, person B does, hires a lawyer, and gets awarded $450 million. The whole system is ridiculous.

Sweet! The lottery!

[tacokill]

Awesome -- another legal "lottery" ticket.

I hate to be so cynical but honestly, that's whats become of the civil courts lately. These people line up to sue company's because, hey, I *might* win and get a HUGE settlement. Combined with some slimeball attorney whispering in their ear and it's easy to see WHY these cases get brought.

They probably won't win. But still, the incentive is there because the civil courts are a modern day lottery ticket. Especially for the class action suits (even tho the atty's get the vast majority of winnings). We long ago abandoned "fairness" and "even handed judgements".

These things happen...

[Pojut]

...because people believe and follow christ. Or adonai. Or allah. Or any other organized-religious deity.

They are so used to passing off their responsabilities and being forgiven, they forget what it means to take ownership of their own fuck-up.

Mod me troll or flamebait if you want. I am being completely serious.

i knew

[KillahKrew]

i know this whould happen sumday

MySpace Alternatives

[Ided]

Maybe instead of teaming up with law officials they can start holding classes for parenting. The parents could have prevented these situations from happening by informing their children of the dangers. And as a parent it is their responsibility if they do not understand the "internet" or what their children are doing to find out and provide the proper care for them.

Rreverse darwinism....

[Anonymous Coward]

if they get knocked up.

MySpace needs to take action!

[Cornflake917]

FTA:

"Hopefully these lawsuits can spur MySpace into action and prevent this from happening to another child somewhere," he said. Hopefully these lawsuits can spur Myspace to make a disclamer stating:

"If you are retarded enough to meet up and give your personal information to a stranger, then please don't use this website."

Re:MySpace needs to take action!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you weren't retarded, you wouldn't be signing up in the first place.

Rules of the internet

[LordEd]

Rule 1: A person claiming to be an attractive female teen is one of the following until proven otherwise:
1. A 57 year old man who rides a scooter
2. A law enforcement agent
3. A criminal out to steal your soul

Re:Rules of the internet

[Pfhorrest]

Ah, the internet... where men are men... women are, too... and little girls are FBI agents...

Re:Rules of the internet

[JimBobJoe]

A criminal out to steal your soul

I have found the difference between that and a teenage female to be nauseatingly imperceptible.

Yes.

[cascadingstylesheet]

Re:Am i the only person.

>who sees this as the parents just looking
>for someone to blame other than themselves?

Yes, you're absolutely the only one. This
opinion is never seen on Slashdot.

Trivia questions

[dreddnott]

An old PC video game, Leisure Suit Larry, actually asked you random trivia questions about pop culture from the 1960s and 1970s to verify that you were old enough to play the game (it wasn't exceptionally mature, especially by today's standards). I was about 14 at the time, and I got all the questions right on my first try (I blame my parents).

They've been reading Slashdot

[cascadingstylesheet]

Re: Where are the parents in these situations

Well, they've been reading Slashdot. They took our advice and didn't monitor their children's internet use, because we know that monitoring is fascist.

Re:They've been reading Slashdot

[jackelfish]

Good point.

Re:They've been reading Slashdot

[Cheesey]

Well, they've been reading Slashdot. They took our advice and didn't monitor their children's internet use, because we know that monitoring is fascist.

Monitoring your young children = Good parenting.
Monitoring your grown-up children = Overparenting.
Monitoring other people's children = Fascism.

Re:They've been reading Slashdot

[tshak]

Government monitoring != parental monitoring.

Re:They've been reading Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck, my brain just exploded. this hasn't happened since Microsoft did something good for us.

Re:They've been reading Slashdot

[Dr. Cody]

Monitoring your young children = Good parenting.
Monitoring your grown-up children = Overparenting.
Monitoring other people's children = Fascism.


"...for everthing else, there's Mastercard."?

How is AOL like a daycare center?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know? Make fun of AOL all we want, but at least it was a safe place.

In other news...

[lukas84]

Back alley sued for facilitating rape.
Microsoft sued for allowing transmission of child pornography through MSN messenger

And the list goes on, and on. When you're a teenager, you should be intelligent enough to not trust anyone on the internet. If you aren't, you failed.

Doesn't MySpace already warn against this?

[Rastl]

For some reason I seem to remember from the last time this came up that MySapce has some text blurb about not making plans to meet up in real life, be careful, etc.

So they already took steps to warn/protect their users.

I really can't see where the website can be held responsible for people's actions in real life. Unless they try to use that 'attractive nuisance' type of prosecution. As in "They knew that their social network would be a virtual playground for sexual predators." Why do I see that exact sentence in the lawsuit somewhere or in the eventual case?

Re:Doesn't MySpace already warn against this?

[calderra]

Websites like this should indeed have SOME warnings / liability waivers due to the legality of our society. A simple sign along the lines of "meeting IRL, giving out credit cards, etc is dangerous- myspace holds no liability" would suffice. And I'm sure it's in their TOS (they do have one, right?). If MySpace can be demonstrated to have utterly failed to provide ANY warnings or waivers, they deserve to get their legal comeuppance. It's just something you have to do "nowadays". I wouldn't even open up a guestbook on my own domain without a waiver somewhere on my site. Beyond that, yes, it's a parenting issue.

Interesting, but flawed analogy

[kalimar]

A better analogy is this: If your teenager was at the mall and met a stranger there who assaulted them, would you: a) sue the mall for not having an individual police escort for each person in the mall b) charge the parents for neglecting to hold their kid's hand the entire time c) find, arrest, and charge the person who committed the assault You would do (c). MySpace is no different than an online mall or park where people meet, talk, etc.

What about parental responsibility?

[cayenne8]

"...while the parents dance all the way to the bank at their childrens expense!! YEEEHAW!"

Geez...this is like suing the street corner where young kids hang out at, and get leered at, or possibly assaulted.

I hope the case gets thrown out, but, probably will not. When did parents abdicate responsibility for monitoring, correcting and teaching their children how to avoid trouble and 'bad' people?

When did kids get so freaking stupid and gullible as to believe these predators? My parents taught me not to 'talk to strangers', etc. Heck, they let me know where the gun at home was in case when I was there alone and felt threatened. Did ever touch it but once? No....but, one time alone, some haggard guy wouldn't get off the front porch asking for water, etc. I didn't let him in...and I watch through the window and peephole, with the gun in my hand locked and loaded till he left.

I then put it back, and told my parents about it right afterwards.

I mean, what is with parents not teaching lessons to kids and making them responsible, etc? My friends and I certainly knew better than to let ourselves get into bad situations. Why don't kids know this today?

Anyway, I can't see how they can sue MySpace...it is just a public hangout, and the individual should be responsible for their actions and safety, and if the user is underage, then the parent is responsible.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[StarvingSE]

When did kids get so freaking stupid and gullible as to believe these predators? My parents taught me not to 'talk to strangers', etc. Heck, they let me know where the gun at home was in case when I was there alone and felt threatened. Did ever touch it but once? No....but, one time alone, some haggard guy wouldn't get off the front porch asking for water, etc. I didn't let him in...and I watch through the window and peephole, with the gun in my hand locked and loaded till he left.

Ok, not trying to flamebait here, but seriously what are your parents smoking? How old were you when they told you about this gun? How do they know you weren't going to show off to your friends while they were gone, and then accidentally blow one of them away, or yourself for that matter. If we're talking about parental responsibilities in this discussion, your parents showed absolutely no responsibility in allowing you access to firearms.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because you weren't responsible at an early age doesn't mean no one else is. Did you notice the GP said that he touched the gun only once when he legitimately felt threatened? And how do you know that the GP wasn't well versed in firearms safety? Where I live 13 year olds can take hunter safety courses and learn how to use a gun safely.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[cayenne8]

"While I agree with you regarding everything else, having a gun in your household -- let alone in the hands of a child -- can hardly be considered responsible."

Please re-read what I originally posted. While I knew where the gun was....I only touched it that one time without supervision of my parents, and after the perceived danger was over, I dropped the clip, and took the chambered shell out, and put it back in the clip....clip back in gun, gun back hidden in my parent's room, and PROMPTLY called my parents and told them.

Maybe where you live it is a bit different, but, in the south in the US, MANY homes have guns in them, we grow up with them...protection, hunting, etc. My Mom and Dad put the 'fear of God' in me if I touched it for any other reason than if my life was in danger. He also took me out with him to target practice, so I knew how to properly use the gun, and also to respect that this thing could be dangerous, and was NOT a toy.

What I was alluding to in my OP, was my parents taught me to be responsible at a young age...

I had to come home alone every day after school, and was left alone every day during the summers when I was old enough to be on my own (12-13 I think). When I came home from school...Mom taught me some cooking basics when I was old enough. It might start by me putting in frozen veggies into the crock pot that she'd started that morning, and as I got old enough to use the stove, knives..etc...I had more responsibilities to help with the family meal. It is one of the reasons I'm a pretty decent cook to this day.

All I'm getting to is, that even if parents both work (like mine), they could in the past raise a child that could be trusted and had responsibility. I'm asking why parents today cannot seem to do that same.

I'm trying to remember how old I was when the gun incident happened...I must have been in like the 5th or 6th grade...so was about 12 or 13...maybe a bit later but, around that time.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[AnomalousTurd]

So you believe it was OK to stand and hold a gun to someone on your porch? Is this the result of being taught responsibility with a gun? Perhaps there is something wrong with your community where you believe this is an appropriate response to a stranger on your property asking for water? I really don't understand your actions. Can you explain? Are strangers really so dangerous in your part of the world?

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[SL Baur]

My parents taught me not to 'talk to strangers', etc. Heck, they let me know where the gun at home was in case when I was there alone and felt threatened. Did ever touch it but once? No....but, one time alone, some haggard guy wouldn't get off the front porch asking for water, etc. I didn't let him in...and I watch through the window and peephole, with the gun in my hand locked and loaded till he left.

but seriously what are your parents smoking? Strange. It sounds to me like the poster's parents taught responsibility and judgement too and their trust was justified.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[bigtangringo]

You should re-read what he said. The unknown person would not leave his porch and he was inside his house watching the guy from a peep hole. The unknown guy was probably completely unaware of what awaited him on the other side of the door if he decided to come through uninvited.

People, in general, are not terribly dangerous. A friend relayed to me something his parents told him when he moved out to go to college: You will meet people you thought only existed in movies.

Again, people for the most part are harmless and good willed, it's the ones that aren't that you have to watch out for. Chance favors the prepared mind, buddy.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[authority69]

I'm going to file suit against the parents of these children because "In my view, the parents waited entirely too long to attempt to institute meaningful security measures that effectively increase the safety of their own children."

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[Zizkus]

Totally agree,

1) Parents provide kiddies with unfettered internet access and allow them to be online unsupervised without even the basics of common smarts training.

2) Kids get in trouble.

3) Parents don't want to face the fact that it is there responsibility to train and supervise their offspring and want someone to blame for what happened.

4) Sue MySpace like it's somehow their fault.

Hell, There probably were predators on Compuserve when it was dial up at 1200 BAUD, I know I had someone invite me to chat and when I accepted launch a trojan script that mimicked Compuserve's text based login and requested login credentials, not being too gullible even then, I just terminated the connection and dialed back in.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[cayenne8]

"So you believe it was OK to stand and hold a gun to someone on your porch? Is this the result of being taught responsibility with a gun?"

I never opened the door...that wouldn't have been safe...I had the gun with me inside the house in case he tried to break in. I yelled at him to leave.

This guy was a ragged bum....not someone you'd normally see in our neighborhood. I was scared....and ready to protect myself if he tried to come in to get me.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[starX]

Look at it from they're point of view; the entire intelligent and thinking world recognizes these parents as careless at best, cluelessly inept at worst. If they can get a judge to award them money for their stupidity, it means that, legally, they aren't stupid. The thing is that kids have always got themselves into bad situations and been abused by perverts, it's just that we talk about it a little bit more publicly now. Back in the day, parents would be too embarrassed to let the world know just how badly they had screwed up to do anything (which IMHO is bad, because they would often not even report the matter to the cops) like filing suite in court.

I fantasize about kidnapping people like this and tattooing a scarlet letter "L" onto their foreheads.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[Original Replica]

Your independent and responsible attitude clashes with the vicitm mentality of the masses. If all societal problems are not funneled through the courts and government programs, how are we to be ensured of our much needed protective control by our beloved leaders?

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[joebagodonuts]

Guns aren't toys, he wasn't using it as one. Sounds like they taught him how to use the gun. More importantly, he used it properly. Ergo, they were responsible.
What makes you think otherwise?

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[rollin2nyte]

Hopefully their parents keep the money so their daughters have to strip for college money :)

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[Unknown_monkey]

I second your story. Grew up in the South, similar experiences, I knew where the pistol was, the bolt action (and how to assemble it because it was kept in a carry case) and at my grandparents there were shotguns and ammo in every room (due to past bad experiences where the gun was what kept them safe until the police arrive)
And the 5 of us children and my cousins knew that those guns were for use in an emergency when we were old enough and touching those for any other reason meant severe punishment (usually a hard spanking and then not being able to stay home alone until you re-earned the trust)
The problem today is that you can't discipline your children without someone calling child services. If I had ever called the police because I had been spanked hard, the 20 minutes until the cops got there would have been much worse than what I had already experienced.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[timmarhy]

you did the right thing. don't listen to that idiot, you never held a gun to anyone. my dad taught me how to shoot a gun and sent me to boxing lessons as a young kid. it's called being prepared to defend your life. the cops won't get there in time to save you from an ass raping. in fact i saw a bumper sticker the other day "guns stop rapes"

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here here.. I grew up in the Midwest, but similar story. My dad spanked me about 3 times that I remember, and that was all it took. When my dad spanked you, you didn't sit down for half an hour. Once when I was about 14 I took a swing at him and he popped me back - nothing very hard, but hard enough to remind me that he was my elder. Respect for your elders was taught resoundingly, and today it still holds deep.

I think the lack of discipline is tied together with the "buddy mentality" that too many parents seem to have nowadays. They're too busy trying to be friends with their children and dropping the ball on the governing side. Parents, I think, are often afraid to be the boss. I've seen it firsthand. My son's biological father almost killed him when he was 6 months old (and subsequently went to prison for years plus is forbidden from having any contact with him), and my wife didn't want to do anything to hurt him after that. When she and I met, he was 4 years old and a holy terror. He constantly terrorized kids at school, he was violent towards her, talked about using knives on people, and anytime she tried to correct him he flew off the handle like the Tasmanian Devil. He's now 7, and the change between now and then is phenomenal. We still have occasional lapses of back-talking and acting up in school - but now it's more akin to goof ball showboating instead of violent rages. Establishing firm boundaries of what is and what is not acceptable behavior - and having a father to model - went a long way towards helping him to get himself back on track.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[GuyverDH]

Where have you been.

Personal responsibility (as well as Parental responsibility) is so 5 minutes ago.

Didn't you hear? Anything and everything you do is because someone else made you do it?

You are not responsible for your own actions, and you aren't responsible for your children's as well.

*Bullshit!* The American people sure like to think they can make a quick buck off of someone else as long as they can claim they were not responsible. Greedy bastards.

What I want to see are criminal negligence suits brought against the parents for letting them get online in the first place.
I want to see parents brought up on child endangerment charges for smoking in enclosed areas (ie cars, houses) with underage children present.

Will it ever happen? Not as long as the boo-hoo snivel cry why me listeners are in charge.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[tubapro12]

On a similar note, how about them Darwin Awards?...of course I draw the line when the stupid ones stop removing their own genes from the genome and start removing those others... however in evolution theory endangering their children is actually equivalent...

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[Technician]

Maybe where you live it is a bit different, but, in the south in the US, MANY homes have guns in them, we grow up with them...protection, hunting, etc

Very true. I grew up in the country. Police were too far away to be of use in a crisis. At home and at my grandparents, a loaded shotgun was right behing the front door in the entry. Another one was kept in the bedroom. My Grandmother shot someone breaking in late at night when my mom was little. It didn't kill him as far as we know, but he didn't finish making it in the broken bathroom window. Home protection in the country is common. Home protection in inner cities is the next common. It gets more news because with more people, use of weapons in home protection is more frequent.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[bky1701]

The problem is the "padded room" mentality. People expect kids to know how to act without ever being shown the reason- sometimes not even told. You being allowed to target practice can be compared to the kids whom are told absolutely nothing about guns, never allowed to see them, etc... they do not know the power they have.

Kids are not seen as human beings, they are seen as ether a pet or a trophy, and thus protected at all costs... but in the long run, the one most protected is the one least able to protect themselves. Kids who never are allowed to do anything that could be "dangerous" have no idea what to do when such a thing happens without someone to protect them.

Whatever happened to "learning from mistakes" and "learning from experience"? Both concepts seem totally lost in the nanny, do-your-homework-or-else state we live in.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[lysergic.acid]

so wanting a judicial process where vigilantes and mobs don't just get to take it upon themselves to be judge, jury, and executioner is a victim mentality? maybe you're right, we don't need law enforcement or a justice system. every dispute should just be solved by whoever has the biggest gun--now that's progress.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[ultranova]

All I'm getting to is, that even if parents both work (like mine), they could in the past raise a child that could be trusted and had responsibility. I'm asking why parents today cannot seem to do that same.

Because they no longer leave their kids home alone with a loaded gun, therefore not giving natural selection a chance to do its work, so even the unresponsible and stupid ones survive to adulthood ?

Unless, of course, you consider MySpace the modern day gun-equivalent.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[m3talocasnica]

I totally agree. MySpace shouldn't be held responsible for its user's misconduct. Actually, the news article states clearly:

"That lawsuit, pending in a Texas state court, claims the 19-year-old lied about being a senior in high school to gain her trust and phone number." How can a social networking site prevent malicious users from lying about their identity? The answer is simple: it can't.

Anyway, same things could happen via other Internet communications services, like instant messaging and IRC networks. Those parents should rather take some parenting lessons instead of suing MySpace.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[notnAP]

Geez...this is like suing the street corner where young kids hang out at

This analogy is flawed in one critical way. The street corner is a public space, with no one person or private organization burdened with implied responsibility for anyone's actions but their own.

One can make the argument that the internet as a whole is public space, and indeed the subsidies the telcos get should carry with it the responsibility that they keep it in the puclis domain. This viewpoint, which I personally agree with, is at the core of the net neutrality debate.

But contrary to trends especially evident here, myspace and other social sites on the internet are NOT public space.

However, and I say this as a parent of two, I do still agree the vast bulk of the responsibility in cases like these resides in the parents. MySpace is to some extent private, but it is my responsibility, not MySpace's, to stop my kids from going to someone' elses "property,", or to supervise them while there.

Myspace is obligated to exercise due diligence to prevent people within their private space from breaking the law, no different than a McDonald's could be liable if it knowingly looked the other way while a sexual predator accosted chilren in its playground. But you cannot expect McDonald's to screen everyone who wants to come into their store, and neither McDonald's nor MySpace is offering babysitting service. If I as a parent allow my kids to go unsupervised to McDonald's while I depart for whereabouts other, McDonald's would have no extra obligation for the safety of my kids. In fact, if they were young enough, McDonald's could even be obligated to stop MY crime of abandoning them by calling the police to report children being left alone on their property.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[Original Replica]

You Sir are quite correct. A parent disciplining their child is exactly equal to vigilante/mob rule. The State know best, perhaps all children should be raised by professional social workers instead of these old fashioned amateurs we call "parents".

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[lysergic.acid]

wth? you need guns and to get rid of courts and police in order to discipline your children?

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[aschrock]

Geez...this is like suing the street corner where young kids hang out at, and get leered at, or possibly assaulted.

No, it's not really like "suing the street corner," it's more like the following: there is a corner where young kids hang out. The authorities know about this corner, but don't make any effort to police it. A child gets assaulted and there is public outrage, leading to a lawsuit against said authorities.

A key part of your post is your discussion of the "individual." It's one thing if the individuals in question are adults, but MySpace has turned a blind eye to verifying the ages of the children (yes, children) who use their site. MySpace could have not allowed minors on the site at all or required parental verification of ages. Allowing children on the website with no age verification no doubt increased the website's popularity, but it did come with a cost. Namely, taking responsibility for being aware of abuse of the system while not taking measures to police it.

As for the place of the parent, there does need to be a concerted effort to increase online media literacy among adults. Most parents probably wouldn't know how to find their child's MySpace profile.

I do agree with some of the general sentiments put forward so far. A multi-million dollar settlement is overkill, and online child abuse has been vastly over-reported (children DO generally respond appropriately to online predators and are no lured in). However, MySpace will need to change some of their policies if they continue to cater to the underage demographic.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[gravis777]

Shoot, I am a godparent, and monitor my godchildren's Myspace. Me and their parents. When the kids are at my house, I am always there with them when they are online. I have their passwords, and can login to their stuff. I check their friends, and their friends' friends. I have reported several to Myspace, and had accounts deleted. If the kids complain, or try to change their password, then we do not let them on the internet. That simple. Kids can scream all they want, but if they want to use the internet, then they will be monitored. Now they do get some privacy. I mean, if I go into their mail and its from someone we know, I won't read it. If they got invites from strange people or strange e-mails, then I look at them. And on top of all of that, we teach them right and wrong, not to talk to strangers, and all of this other stuff. Yes, it takes some work, but if you want your kids to be safe, then YOU have to take the initiative.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[GuyverDH]

Exactly my point. Thanks for doing the right thing.

I was being quite sarcastic when I wrote the above.

Re:What about parental responsibility?

[ryanov]

Because, first off, having a gun in your home is probably one of the better ways to put yourself at risk. The statistics, I believe, say having a gun in your home at all is bad news for your safety, because it's more likely to be used against you than anything else.

Second, yes, he was taught to use it responsibly and that's fine. However, a child will have difficulty physically defending himself from an adult attacker, and really CAN'T have as much experience as an adult, unless the adult is completely new to guns.

As such, NOT responsible. Not a whole lot more responsible WITHOUT the child either.

Give me a friggin break.

[necro2607]

Come on, give me a break. This is just downright stupid.

I'm so sick of people freaking out about online social sites. Take legal action against the criminal.

People are able to meet people in a huge huge variety of ways. You can just stand on the street and meet people! Are we going to start suing our cities for offering a place for sexual predators to attack potential victims (parking lots, alley ways, etc.)?

It's so hard not to feel angry about this. Myspace is a completely legitimate site to meet people, socialize, check out some bands, etc. If you're meeting someone on Myspace (or ANY online social site) and choosing to meet them in person, sending them suggestive pictures, giving them your phone number, that is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY. YOU are choosing to do all of these things.

I've been on Myspace since 2004, have been in contact with hundreds of hundreds of people, and it's damn easy for me to realize I shouldn't give out my phone number, address, or even real name. It's just common fucking sense! Unless you like getting prank called at 4AM in the morning, or worse, having some kind of predator type person showing up in the middle of the night, or whatever, keep your information private!

But...

[Anonymous Coward]

If my daughter DOESN'T get raped my some asshole she met online... how am I ever going to get rich?!?

Gross generalization

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the myspace suit is b.s., however it isn't the same as the case you deride.
The line isn't as black and white as you think it is.

"Individuals are responsible for their own actions."

Yes, and part of that is the endangerment of others.

"it's ridiculous to think that my actions (getting drunk, driving, getting in a wreck) can in any way involuntarily impose any sort of legal obligation on someone else (bartender, bar owner)."

In general, no it's not. Involuntary manslaughter, criminal negligence, accessory charges? They are there for a reason. Do you really think that if you walked into a bar and ordered 100 shots at once (for yourself) they would / should be able to serve them to you?

Look at the recent case of the woman who died via water intoxication during a contest to win a wii. The station and contest organizers showed a blatant disregard for the safety and health of the contestants, at one point during the contest laughing about a kid who previously died from water intoxication. Should they be held responsible? Heck yes. Signing a release form, no matter what the terms cannot remove basic responsibilities from the contest organizers, nor can it deprive the signee of basic rights. In the same form, reality shows who hold dangerous stunts should be held responsible if they don't provide adequate medical attention / preparation for those who could be injured.

Re:"Lawsuit" is much easier to say than "responsib

[delt0r]

At that time I had to go to the library to chat, because my parents wouldn't let me chat online at home. So I wound up in an unsupervised environment where I could have given out more information about myself or location if someone had taken me into their confidence.
Thats the problem. When you are old enough to get around your parents parenting, then at least some blame lands on you. Its the parents fault when they monitor there teens. Its the parents fault when kids do something stupid. What about the kids since really they are usally young adults by this stage and some of it is in fact their fault.

No matter what age you are, your are always capable of screwing up your own life. And it makes no difference who you blame. You life will still be screwed.

Ive been raped by myspace

[tddoog]

It was ocular and auditory rape.

I fear I will never be the same.

Re:Ive been raped by myspace

[Apocalypse111]

I know just how you feel man... I got goatse'd as a young man, by someone I considered a close friend... I've never been the same.

Re:Ive been raped by myspace

[bky1701]

Goatse? Theres a lot worse, haven't you see some of these people's userpages? I mean, did they even bother reading the W3 specification of CSS?

It's the parents responsibility...

[Eric Damron]

It seems very hard to protect oneself from lawyers and their wily ways. If you have a mean dog in your fenced yard and someone trespasses and gets bit you can be sued. If you put up a sign that says "Beware of Dog" the lawyer may just argue that you knew the dog was dangerous and the warning sign you put up is proof.

I remember there was a case where a bicycle manufacturer got sued because some kid got hit by a car while riding one of their bikes at night with no light! The lawyer argued that because the bike came with reflectors the kid somehow believed that it didn't need lights and there wasn't a warning that came with the bike to tell him the obvious. The really sad thing is that the jury found in favor of the kid.

Parents need to realize that most kids go through a phase where they are too stupid to pass the Darwin test.

Re:It's the parents responsibility...

[geekoid]

"If you have a mean dog in your fenced yard and someone trespasses and gets bit you can be sued. If you put up a sign that says "Beware of Dog" the lawyer may just argue that you knew the dog was dangerous and the warning sign you put up is proof."

Cite (as opposed to site)?
Link?
I hear this a lot, but I can't find a case.

"I remember there was a case where a bicycle manufacturer got sued because some kid got hit by a car while riding one of their bikes at night with no light"

Cite? Link?
perhaps you remember some urban myth probably started by an insurance company?

osr popular urban tails about lawsuits are false, or grossly misrepresented in the example.

Re:It's the parents responsibility...

[goarilla]

this is a classic example of the glory of american law!

Re:Shoot the EULA!

[wesleynixon]

Does this mean that if MySpace loses, a precedent may finally be set that would invalidate click-through EULAs?

What laws have Myspace broken?

[WombatDeath]

Genuine question. As far as I'm aware, in order to take someone to court you need to claim that they've broken one or more laws. So does anyone know what Myspace has allegedly done, or not done, which is supposed to have broken the law? All the articles mutter things about negligence, but that surely requires an unfulfilled legal requirement of the service provider.

This case is clearly wrong on every level, but I'm curious to know what grounds these people think that they have for lodging a case. Or is it a straightforward greedy lawyer thing?

Re:What laws have Myspace broken?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to break a law to go to civil court. You're thinking of criminal court.

Hypocrisy at its finest

[DerekLyons]

You failed to do my job for me by protecting my child from my own inability to monitor their activity and teach them how to make good decisions.

Once again - Slashdot displays it's hypocrisy and double standards.
 
Whenever parental monitoring is proposed - all the highly moderated comments are the ones crying about how parents shouldn't be Big Brother, tracking their physical locations and online activities is unethical and shows a lack of trust in the child, etc... etc... But when a child becomes a victim - all of the sudden the parents are villified because they didn't do those things.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[theelectron]

No, we complain when the government tries to be just like Big Brother. We hold parents at least partially accountable for thier children.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[Ohrion]

Slashdot has no standards, it's the standards of the individual posters that are represented. I doubt the mentioned comments were by the same people. Personally I believe that this case should be thrown out of court and the parents reprimanded severely. Asking your children what they are doing and taking an active role in as many of their experiences as possible is an important aspect of raising a child. If this had happened to one of my children, I would be devastated with grief as well as GUILT for not doing my job.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[PFI_Optix]

You make the mistake of lumping me in with the Slashbots who want to hold parents accountable but don't think they have the right to exercise control over their child's life. Your entire argument is built on this strawman.

MySpace should not be responsible for behavior that parents allow to happen. When you give your children unrestricted and unmonitored access to the internet, you accept that they are at risk of being exposed to predators.

When my own children are old enough to get their own computers and have unmonitored (as in without me standing/sitting beside them) computer time, you can bet I'll have a few precautions in place. Rather than using a content filter to prevent access, I'll simply monitor their browsing history via my router. I'll use VNC or some other program that will allow me to remotely observe their activities from time to time without them knowing about it.

Once I'm confident they are making good decisions I'll back off some but make it known that I have the ability to keep tabs on them should I feel the need--and make it a condition of having a computer that they do not disable my ability to check it by turning off the VNC service or anything like that.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[dosius]

That's because parents should BE THERE and WATCH their kids. A computer is not an electronic babysitter and should never be used as such. To use it as such is irresponsible. And I agree with another poster here, these parents should be made to give their kids up to foster care because obviously they can't raise them.

-uso.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[jasonhamilton]

I don't think that is the case.

What I think is that the case being brought is stupid, and people are lashing out due to that fact, not so much due to the spyware stuff.

If the parent's wanted justice, they'd go after the person(s) who actually attacked their kids. Instead they're going after a company they think they can milk for millions. If it wasn't for the car makers, the attackers couldn't have easily gotten to the kids either! How about the ISP's who allowed the communications between user and the website? How about the web browser itself?! The list goes on and on. Blaming myspace is a joke.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[DerekLyons]

Slashdot has no standards, it's the standards of the individual posters that are represented. I doubt the mentioned comments were by the same people.

It's the collective standards of the posters and moderators at issue - and after years of reading Slashdot, the trend is plainly visible. Slashdot collectively insists that parents are responsible when something happens - but are equally adamant that monitoring tools that would aid the parents in discharging their responsibilities are henious crimes against the childrens 'rights'. These two positions are mutually incompatible.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[DerekLyons]

You make the mistake of lumping me in with the Slashbots who want to hold parents accountable but don't think they have the right to exercise control over their child's life.

No, I replied to you out of the convience of your posts position in the thread.
 
 

MySpace should not be responsible for behavior that parents allow to happen.

When you actually have kids - you'll learn that things happen even when you don't 'allow' them to. You'll also learn the places and organizations that provide attractive yet potentially dangerous enviroments (like MySpace, or an unfenced pool) *ARE* responsible for their actions.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[PFI_Optix]

When you actually have kids

Have two, thanks. Try again.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[authority69]

attractive yet potentially dangerous environments (like MySpace, or an unfenced pool) Perhaps you should add "computer" to that list.

If your kids get hurt in your pool, who's to blame? If your kids get hurt using your computer, why is it now someone else's fault?

If you have a pool, you have to put a fence around it. Perhaps if you have a computer, you need to put a "fence" around it. It's time for parents to accept responsibility for how their computer is used by their kids.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[Fozzyuw]

attractive yet potentially dangerous environments (like MySpace, or an unfenced pool)

Perhaps you should add "computer" to that list.

If your kids get hurt in your pool, who's to blame? If your kids get hurt using your computer, why is it now someone else's fault?

If you have a pool, you have to put a fence around it. Perhaps if you have a computer, you need to put a "fence" around it. It's time for parents to accept responsibility for how their computer is used by their kids.

Well, said. A nice rebuttal to a misdirected argument/analogy. I also agree that society (especially parents, but others as well) seems to be more concerned about pointed their finger at someone else than taking self responsibility for actions they're responsible for, particularly when money is involved.

Cheers,
Fozzy

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[Anonymous Coward]

You are incorrect. Any method of child tracking postualed here is met with many angry outraged posts complaining about not letting a child be a free spirit, usually with anedotes about how great they or someone they knew became cause their parent(s) were laxer than the social norm...

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[Anonymous Coward]

"but are equally adamant that monitoring tools that would aid the parents in discharging their responsibilities are henious crimes against the childrens 'rights'. These two positions are mutually incompatible."

Examples? I don't recall seeing this and I suspect it is the viewpoint of a small minority.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[redcane]

There may be a fine line, but there is one. The monitoring tool a parent needs, is knowing where their child is, having some idea of who they are spending time with, and some assesment of the character of those persons. They don't need to know the intimate details of their daughters chats with his/her friends and potential boyfriends/girlfriends, just like they don't need to read the childs diary. They should have enough of a channel of communication open with their child to know how far to trust them. They should educate their child to know when to walk away from or avoid a situation.
In my opinion, myspace comes into the "conversations between friends" category, but it is also the "where you are, who you are spending time with category". The parents should ask about their friends (from myspace or otherwise). The other thing to remember is that none of these children got abused *on* myspace. They met someone in real life. Now when I was young, my parents knew where I physically was. I expect to know where my kids are too. I expect them not to be meeting people from the internet, at least not without taking reasonable steps to ensure safety (e.g. meeting them at home in presence of parents.)
I hope I showed how this is not hypocritical. You don't need myspace monitoring tools as a parent to know dropping your 14/15 yr old daughter off at 19 year old random males place is a bad idea. You should have enough of a leash or alternaticely trust with the child to know they aren't going to make their own way there, or invite strangers to your home. If you can't trust them enough, or keep track of them closely enough to know they aren't getting into trouble then you may as well cut off the phone, and lock them in the basement now.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[bky1701]

Knowing what someone is doing doesn't constitute spyware and locking-in-rooms-until-21. Not everything is black and white, or even as simple as you want it to be.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[MobyDisk]

Please link to some of those comments, because I think you have misunderstood them.

Slashdotters don't like the parental monitoring software because they think that parents, not software, should monitor their kids. That viewpoint is completely consistent with what people are saying here today.

1) Parents should monitor their kids
2) Third party software can't be trusted to do it
3) Technological systems don't work anyway

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[angulion]

I think the /. crowd would like to see parents spend time with their kids and teach them the do's and don'ts on the net, instead of just installing some "protecting" software and be done with it (or sue the software company when it doesn't work).

I really comes down to doing some effort as a parent to bring up ones kids instead of relying on a 3rd party.

Responsibility.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can only monitor your kids by knowing their physical locations or checking their online activities you're stupid. The only way to really know what your kids are up to is good communication. Whenever I was out or my own my parents would asked me whaere I went, with whom and what did I do. The few times I tried to lie them they realized immediately. And I would never dare to tell them it was not their business cause I knew the consecuences.

Lots of kids nowadays lie and manipulate their parents because they are lazy or stupid and don't spend time trying to communicate with their kids. They too busy trying to earn money to get bigger car, a bigger house, a bigger TV. "It's for the kids" some of them will say. Yeahhh sure. Your kids could be raised perfectly with just love and their basic needs covered. Everything else is BS.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[ACMENEWSLLC]

Blame the guns, blame the tubes. It's the damned tubes faults. If it wasn't for the lack of the Internet tubes ability to self police every thing my child does, then there would not be a problem.

Of course, the law is not logical. A stupid person not paying attention drove into the back of one of our tractor trailers while she was going 80MPH and staring at a wreck on the other side of the highway. Her husband now a paraplegic.

Our truck was going under the legal limit of 45MPH. Because we were found 1%, we were responsible for millions of dollars of damage.

The parents are just hopping on this lottery. I can't blame them. The real problem is our stupid legislative branch putting laws into place which allow them to win.

Re:Hypocrisy at its finest

[Anonymous Coward]

"usually with anecdotes about how great they or someone they knew becamecause their parent(s) were laxer than the social norm..."

Dude, this is SO true! I wouldn't be the sexual dynamo that I am today, beloved of all teh hawt chix, if it weren't for the fact that my parents let me have a 'puter in my bedroom so I could surf porn.

True story, I swear!

Slashdot reaction - change to suit the situation

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand the vast majority of the responses to this - "they should have been better parents" - and there is a certain amount of truth to it. But please remember that these are the same people that will tell you monitoring children's internet usage is an invasion of privacy. You can't have it both ways, folks. Either monitoring is right or it's wrong. Which do you *really* choose?

In our view

[geekoid]

the parent waited entirly too long before taking an interest in what their children do.

er... what about the *other* people on the road?

[raddan]

You don't think that the drunk driving example is even slightly complicated by the fact that drunk drivers often crash into (and kill) other drivers?

But yeah, suing MySpace because your kid is stupid is just laughable.

So many idiots...

[birdboy2000]

(Copypasta from my FARK post made after the thread had died. Some of this might not apply to slashdot, but given what previous threads on the subject have contained...) *sigh* Is free and open discussion with anyone around the world, that which our founders could only dream of, so terrifying? Does parenting fry one's brain? All this talk -- banning kids from the internet, credit cards for registration, keylogging, shared passwords or computers in the family room, all masquerading as "good parenting" or myspace taking "appropriate responsibility..." Quite frankly, its ridiculous. All one needs to do to keep one's kids safe is to set firm rules regarding offline meetings (Chaperoned, public place, etc.) and they'll be fine; pedophiles can't reach through the computer and rape your children. And to be quite honest, I wouldn't be surprised if the *real* purpose of all this fearmongering is to try to rein in the digital revolution, with "pedophiles" as a scare tactic. (Oh, and half the time, your perfect little angels posting half-naked pictures on myspace aren't particularly adverse to sex with random internet strangers, so just make sure they use protection. Treat them the same way you'd treat a teenage male with a sex drive and leave your idiotic double standards behind.)

To society:

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad parents maybe, but their daughters are sluts, and chances are so are yours -- but yours are better at hiding it.

Famous Quote

[darb_is_fat]

Mommy drinks because you whore yourself on MySpace!

Re:Sweet! The lottery!

[geekoid]

I suggest yuou research civil suits. It's not really that bad.

Right now insurance agency are trtying to stop tort law. Most of the stories they release to the public are made up by them.
Don't be fooled.

Tort law is the last defence against large and powerfull organization.

Don't confuse people saying they will sue with actual suits.

Re:"Lawsuit" is much easier to say than "responsib

[RyoShin]

I can understand the monitoring portion- the parents may not have known that the kids are on MySpace, just as my parents didn't know I was chatting at the library instead of reading (actually, they suspected I was, but either they thought it was harmless or didn't care enough to do more than ask me). My parents could still have called the library to ask what I was doing.

However, when the kid is actually going somewhere, then the parent should be paying much more attention. Again, if you ask them where they go, they'll likely lie (don't kid yourself otherwise), so you have to follow up. And then education is important- I didn't know about paedophiles at that age, but I did know there were bad people out there, and my parents told me that telling people online where I live was bad, and explained enough that I understood why.

They never told me I could receive penises in my e-mail, though. (I didn't understand spam back then, either.)

your cunning plan

[soxos]

What about the case where some over-served drunk asshole kills himself in a head-on collision with your wife? She's now an invalid you have to take care of 24/7 for the rest of your life? Are you prepared to allow that bar continues to serve patrons as much alcohol as they can pay for and be satisfied that each patron is responsible for their own actions?

Alcohol may be free (not as in beer ;), but that doesn't mean that the purveyors of the drug shouldn't be regulated and held accountable for negligent actions. The anarchic society you're advocating is not one I'd like to live in.

I agree with your views on the small scale. I am as against government regulation as you are, but I do want laws in place that will limit the actions of those who refuse to take the responsibility for their actions that you and I do.

And the reason you are not a moron is...

[Per Abrahamsen]

... that /. really is a hive mind, so it is perfectly fair and reasonable to accuse /. for hypocrisy when one poster in one thread displays an opinion that conflicts with another poster in another thread.

Re:And the reason you are not a moron is...

[scotsalmon]

Nice job yourself replying to a statement never made. The "moron"'s comment didn't compare a poster here to another poster in another thread. The "moron" noted that highly-rated comments in other threads express views that are possibly inconsistent with the highly-rated comments in this thread. /. isn't a hive mind, but in aggregate, the moderation reflects a collective opinion. The collective opinion in other threads the "moron" alludes to has been that, generally, people (including children? teenagers? not clear) should not be subject to intrusive monitoring of their 'net activities. The collective opinion in this thread is that people are responsible for their own actions, unless they are children, in which case their parents are (in part? largely? not clear) responsible for their actions.

The conflict (I think the "moron" went over the top in calling it "hypocrisy") comes down to how much monitoring of children by parents collective opinion would consider to be reasonable. Just to make it interesting let's call the child a 17-year-old high school senior. If she ends up assaulted by someone she met online she should have been more closely monitored in her 'net use? After being a responsible computer user for 15 years?

Other posters in this thread have noted that a daughter in a "good" family wouldn't get into this situation because she would tell her parents about the relationship, etc. I think it's pretty bold to judge a person guilty of being a bad parent just because a teenage daughter doesn't tell them about every guy she meets. It's not like these guys are advertising themselves as sleazy child molesters -- she might well consider him a friend, a guy her age from a neighboring town. I suspect the perverts know how to make themselves sound like reasonable people.

Disclaimer: Amen to those who say this is a ridiculous lawsuit, it really is. But it's just strange that so many posts are so over the top blaming flat-out bad parents. There is an obvious person to blame here: the child molester. Sometimes the bad guy wins and that doesn't mean the good guys need to take sides and blame other good guys.

-Scot

Re:And the reason you are not a moron is...

[strider44]

Bullshit. Your argument has two flaws. Firstly the commenters here are talking more about education and less about tracking their children's every move. That doesn't matter so much to this argument though.

Secondly, and more importantly, people care about different things. The people most likely to care about and post about parents tracking their children are the people least likely to express this opinion in this thread. The people least likely to care and post about about parents tracking are most likely to post in this thread that the parents should be doing some tracking. Anyway, the main flaw in your argument is that you seem to think that it takes a "collective" or a majority of slashdotters to get a +5 moderated post, when really it takes only 4 people (assuming the poster started at 2). If there are 100 +5 moderated posts (extremely high for a thread) with that opinion that just means that max of a few hundred people (out of a million) think that this is an argument that is worth expressing. That is nowhere near a majority representation of Slashdot.

So don't imagine some huge Slashdot collective opinion since there quite frankly is just a lot of people who disagree with eachother. If that weren't the case then Slashdot would be a lot less fun.

Re:And the reason you are not a moron is...

[scotsalmon]

Those are valid flaws in my argument and I am aware of them. I personally don't buy that they make my argument "bullshit" (especially your claim of the "main" flaw -- if we were talking about one post's moderation, sure, but take a look at all the posts and all the moderation -- together, that represents the opinion of a lot more than 4 people -- personally I think the flaw you cited "secondly" is the main flaw in my argument, still not enough to make me disown it though). I wouldn't use my logic in a scientific study but I think it shows a truth. You don't need a majority of a population to get a representative sample and deduce a collective opinion. Admittedly my sample is not representative (due to your "secondly" point) but close enough, I say =).

Example: Yes, there are a lot of diverse opinions that go into /., but it would hardly be controversial to state that slashdotters, overall, don't particularly like the RIAA. It's clearly possible to get a feel of the collective opinion of a diverse group of people. I feel like I have a read on the /. collective opinion on the two issues here, you may have a different read but yours is wrong =P. But I could be wrong about that =).

At any rate, the fact that there are varied opinions is sort of the point, isn't it? Many comments are ganging on up "bad parents" in this thread, but we can see from other opinions, collective or otherwise, that there isn't a single answer that would prevent bad things from happening to children. Sometimes bad things happen because bad people really wanted them to happen, not because good people screwed up, and it's not always necessary for good guys to take sides against the other good guys who do things a different way. That means parents shouldn't sue because their daughter met a predator through MySpace, and /.'ers shouldn't assume someone is a bad parent because their daughter met a predator through MySpace. It is quite possible that the only person who did anything truly wrong in the entire situation was the predator.

-Scot

Re:And the reason you are not a moron is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to make it interesting let's call the child a 17-year-old high school senior.

The word "horny" probably should be in there somewhere. As well as remembering that there are plenty of places with ages of consent lower than 17.

Other posters in this thread have noted that a daughter in a "good" family wouldn't get into this situation because she would tell her parents about the relationship, etc.

Especially if her family are trying to control what relationships she has.

It's not like these guys are advertising themselves as sleazy child molesters -- she might well consider him a friend, a guy her age from a neighboring town.

It isn't unknown for people to have sexual orientations towards people of a different age from themselves. Indeed women seeking men older than themselves often isn't viewed as remarkable.

Amen to those who say this is a ridiculous lawsuit, it really is. But it's just strange that so many posts are so over the top blaming flat-out bad parents.

Maybe the reason they are being viewed as bad is because they initiated this lawsuit....

Re:And the reason you are not a moron is...

[ultranova]

Nice job yourself replying to a statement never made. The "moron"'s comment didn't compare a poster here to another poster in another thread. The "moron" noted that highly-rated comments in other threads express views that are possibly inconsistent with the highly-rated comments in this thread.

Amazingly enough Slashdot not only has more than 1 poster, it also has more than 1 moderator. Please also note that not everyone reads every single article, leading to different articles having different audiences. There is no conflict.

/. isn't a hive mind, but in aggregate, the moderation reflects a collective opinion.

No it doesn't. Moderating a comment highly does not mean that you agree with the opinions expressed in it, it simply means that the comment contributes to the discussion. You may well disagree with a comment and still consider it insighful, if it for example showed you another way of looking at things.

Re:And the reason you are not a moron is...

[arevos]

The "moron" noted that highly-rated comments in other threads express views that are possibly inconsistent with the highly-rated comments in this thread. /. isn't a hive mind, but in aggregate, the moderation reflects a collective opinion. It would reflect a collective opinion if posts were moderated up and down in equal measure, or if there were no limit on how high a post could be moderated. This is not the case, as posts tend to be moderated up rather more often than they are moderated down, and the score of each post is limited to the range -1 to 5. Thus, your argument that Slashdot moderation reflects a collective opinion may not be valid.

To illustrate this, consider two ideologically opposed groups, A and B, where A has a two-thirds majority. In a system where posts are moderated up and down in equal measure, then posts appealing to group A would be modded up by two thirds of the mods, and modded down by one third, giving an overall score of 50% above the average. Likewise, posts appealing to group B would be modded up by one third, and modded down by two thirds, giving a score of 50% below average. The same effect can be seen on a moderation system with no upper limit.

However, on Slashdot, where posts are generally modded up far more often than modded down, and there is a maximum score of 5, then these effects are not seen. A post appealing to group A will be modded up to 4 or 5, but so will a post appealing to group B. One could make the argument that from this, one would expect to see 2/3rds more posts agreeing with A than B. However, the number of posts moderated highly is relatively small, and not all moderators have a strong viewpoint on a particular issue. Conclusions generated from the patterns of Slashdot moderation are, therefore, rather tenuous.

Re:And the reason you are not a moron is...

[ArsonSmith]

No, no. I as a good slashdotter only agree with highly moderated posts. I only laugh at +5 funnies, and I frown at all -1 posts for the evil that they are.

Re:And the reason you are not a moron is...

[Bastard of Subhumani]

Indeed women seeking men older than themselves often isn't viewed as remarkable.

They don't seek older men. They seek richer men, but they're prepared to tolerate a few wrinkles for a lot of dollars.

Re:And the reason you are not a moron is...

[strider44]

Apologies, I should have made it more clear that I was refuting just the first paragraph :) Forgot to do a blockquote!

But of course there's not one answer, and no answer will fix everything, it just tweaked with me people talking about "Slashdot" being contradictory. There's no group mind, just a collection of people. Slashdot may very well have a majority opinion on many things - RIAA being the obvious one, but even that's nowhere near unanimous. This one though I think that there's no majority opinion on either topic.

Bringing anything constructive out of this

[Jugalator]

Sometimes I wish they should at least be forced to come up with advice on what "meaningful security" is when they sue like this to at least get something better than relatives to a victim of a sexual offense seeking money from a social community. I understand they don't have to, but why do I get the feeling these parents would think "meaningful security" would be something economically/organizationally crazy like snail mailing the parents for a written approval before allowing a user under 18 to register an account on MySpace, or something on that order? :-p

Re:"Lawsuit" is much easier to say than "responsib

[Anonymous Coward]

If you taught your kids right from wrong, why would you have to monitor them?

This is good

[symes]

Parents of young children will know that you just cannot keep your eye on them 24/7 - it's near impossible but also because kids need to grow and learn for themselves in safe environments. For the latter, and particularly in the social domain, kids will not want mum and/or dad looking over their shoulder, meddling in their social affairs. A site like MySpace clearly attracts many many juveniles and it's success is partly due to their use of the site so, yes, they should be forced to take greater responsibility. Just the same way that the owners of playgrounds are forced to meet health and safety standards. If a child gets a rusty nail through their hand while going down a slide then it's not mum/dad's fault is the playground operator's fault. Or like someone setting up and running a kids disco but not bothering with door security and leaving the door open for any old creep to walk in, groom a few kids, unchallenged, and basically do what the hell they please. Same with MySpace - the shareholders are doing well from attracting a large number of kids to their site, they need to take greater responsibility - certainly more than they are at the moment.

Re:This is good

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you F'ing kidding me? MySpace cant be responsible for what people do "OFFLINE". Thats like saying the phone book companies are responsible because your daughter dialed phone numbers until she happened upon someone she thought sounded nice AND THEN WENT OUT TO MEET HIM!

End the Insanity

[PacketScan]

Ok When will the Bullshit END?
I mean really.. Someone else is responsible because you don't watch what your kids are doing online? These "predators" have been talked about in the news for how long now?
But you still take the additude of "This will not happen to me"
Outright Insanity, Maybe we need to have IQ test before being able to procreate?

wrong signal to children

[Spliffster]

IANAL. I personally think such parents should be charged for sending a wrong singal to their upgrowings. They basicly say: "Look, if you screw up to do your duty and something unpleasant happens about it, find some one related to this issue (although irresponsible for that matter) and blame them".

It's the law

[Bob 4knee]

While I agree with you regarding everything else, having a gun in your household -- let alone in the hands of a child -- can hardly be considered responsible.

It's not just responsible, it's the law.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/16/opinion/16reynol ds.html?ex=1169528400&en=e25f9e3ee04c5254&ei=5070

Re:It's the law

[abundance]

gaaaaaah XD jesus, and then you wonder why we europeans are full of cowboy stereotypes about america...

Re:It's the law

[Servo]

Who knew the New York Times would ever print such a glowing account of pro-gun advocacy?

Re:It's the law

[mateomiguel]

I don't understand why you think "cowboy stereotype" is a bad thing. When I was a kid I used to play at being a cowboy incessantly. We watched westerns, bought the hats, wore boots and big belt buckles...

Basically if you accused me of being a cowboy it would be the greatest day of my adult life. Look! That guy over there! yes, the skinny one! He thinks I'm a real cowboy! I'm not shitting you.

Re:"Lawsuit" is much easier to say than "responsib

[SpecBear]

Whatever happened to monitoring your children anyway? When did it become inappropriate to watch over what your kids did? There are too many parents out there who insist on treating their kids like they're just smaller versions of adults, but then scream "Think of the children" when they suffer adult consequences for their bad decisions.

When I was a kid, I had to prove to my parents that I was trustworthy before I was allowed to have a phone in my room. Up until I reached a certain age, every phone conversation I had took place in a common area of the house. And even when I was having conversations in my room, we only had the one phone line so at any time anybody might pick up another phone in the house and hear what was being said.

The computer was also in a common area. Anyone walking by could see what I was doing at a glance. There was a lot less to do back then, though.

These days I see kids with their own cell phones. If you check the random silly photos and videos made by teens and posted online, you'll see a good number of them have computers in their bedrooms and have access to digital cameras. Sexual predators of years past could only dream of today's world. Kids are allowed to open up windows into their bedrooms, and anybody who can connect to the internet can come along anonymously and take a peek in. Parents give this capability to their kids, and then leave them unsupervised. And you can even contact them, safely and privately, without any concern that bothersome adults will interfere.

When did the world go completely mad?

This is what's wrong with America...

[slayermet420]

This lawsuit is exactly what's wrong with America these days. The "It's not my fault" idea is getting ridiculous. It's not MySpace, or any social networking site, who should be responsible for your children. You are! You need to make sure your kids aren't going to go meet older men they met on MySpace. You need to monitor what your kids do online. This falls on you Parents of America! Oh, and how about educating your kids that it's not ok to do these kind of things? It is that difficult to sit down with you kids and teach them the simple concept of Right and Wrong? These parents should be ashamed.

Be more like Craigslist...

[Seismologist]

I think the problem here is giving minors a forum amongst adults. This is not any different than our society in general (if I were to shamelessly summarize), however there is a physical and interactive boundary between minors and adults IRL. This I fear, is not quite so on MySpace and other social websites, and this social interactive boundary is very blurred, if not non-existent. It also doesn't help when minors post salacious photos of themselves. I believe the informal, net-lingo term to describe this is "attention whore".

If the parents "actually" knew their son's or in the case of this discussion, knew their daughters we posting these photos, would they be shocked? Many websites, such as Yahoo require that parental consent for their minor should be given prior to a service is granted, i.e. an email account. Craigslist requires that any personal listing posted is by an adult of at least 18 years of age.

The problem isn't MySpace, the problem is that MySpace is so popular.

Re:Be more like Craigslist...

[Wwhispers]

I agree, my son goes on MySpace, the photos sent to him is crazy and I am far from a prudish mom. I do think what will cut down on it is to charge a nominal fee. Say $1-2.00 and having to use a major credit card to sign up with. And with that sign up is an agreement that you will monitor your child's actions and be held responsible. I do not expect MySpace to protect my children. This is the internet, it's very easy to say I'm this and this....come on now. When some 45 yr old signs up with a credit card, his account says hey, i'm a 45 yr old man/woman and this is my account or I'm a 45 yr old man/woman and I made this account for my child. Email chat logs to both accounts chatting. My son uses my laptop, if he gets punished for any length of time, I format it and when he can use it again, I throw the ghost back on. Simple. The problem is a parent's lack of taking responsibility.

Feed the messenger

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm raising a family of 4 on 16.75/hr @ 4hr/day (that's $17420/yr). "

Pfft! That's nothing. Sally Struthers is raising my kids on 80 cents a day.

"Monetary damages"???

[mark-t]

This has nothing to do with the kids and everything to do with a money grab. If they were really doing this for the kids, they would be suing for them to change their policies. You can't put a price on children, so any dollar figure you apply is meaningless... unless the kids are to interpret that they only mean that much to their parents.

Treat Kids Like Adults

[6ame633k]

I have a solution for parents - treat your kids the way YOUR Employer treats YOU!

Employers place the monitors outward for a good reason - they want to make sure their employees are working instead of spending hours playing solitaire. So, to mimic this setup simply remove computers from bedrooms and place them in the family room where you can see what they are doing. Have the monitor facing out into the room - just like work! For an added effect build tiny, depressing grey cubicles, it will make them want to get outside and play!

Then, restrict website access. Can you surf for pr0n at work? Well, maybe if you work for Playboy, but most of us can't - why should your kid be able to look at nude chicks when you are not even allowed? Turn on parental controls - and learn how to use them. Of course, the odds are your kids are smarter than you and can turn them off, that's why moving the computer where you can see it is so effective.

Monitor site passwords. That's right - your employer can read your email anytime they please, why should your kids have it any different? Spot check on occasion to make sure they are not planning a columbine style attack or talking to MySpace predators.

Restrict time usage. If you don't get your work done at work you can't play on the computer either. Why? because you are fired! Computers are for work, so only allow them for fun if they do the work first! After homework is complete allow some MySpacing or on-line gaming for 1 hour. After the hour is up restrict entertainment to solo game play (no Internet access) or T.V. You don't have time to monitor them for 3 hours any more than your employer has time to watch you.

When they whine "it's not fair" say..."well, take it up with my boss."

I hope MySpace..

[Wwhispers]

I hope MySpace turns around and sues every lawyer and parent that sued them for this bogus BS. There is no protecting kids online. No protecting adults online. There is only one protection from any online predators. DO NOT GO ONLINE! The next thing will be to sue the school when you child gets shot walking to school. It wouldn't have happened if school started later.. There is no end to bogus lawsuits. Everyone can sue over anything, it's winning that is a different story. When these suits are lost, there should be a $50k fine for the parent and $100k fine for the lawyer that took the case!

The reason you are a moron is

[DerekLyons]

... that after years of reading Slashdot, the trends in thought of Slashdot posters and moderators collectively are precisely what is stated. Only a drooling idiot confuses the trends of a collective society with a hivemind.

Re:The reason you are a moron is

[Anonymous Coward]

Q.E.D.
You just successfully proved that you are a drooling idiot.

Blissfulness

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignorance is bliss - until your ignorance hurts you. To the ignorant, it's obvious that someone then has to pay for interrupting that bliss. And in the millions, because that bliss is long gone.

If people understand the basic rule that others can be evil - everyone would be more wary of the conduct of others and such incidents would be significantly reduced.

But that would interfere with bliss.

Translation to English

[Anonymous Coward]

> four families from across the U.S. have joined together after their underage daughters were abused by men they met via MySpace.

Translation: Four families are suing MySpace after the parents found out that they raised a slut who's lying about her age on MySpace in order to pick up older men. The men in question are all horny college guys who thought they were talking to horny college girls and were surprised to find out they were talking to horny high school girls looking for horny college guys.

Suggested Action: Make it a felony for any female to lie about her age (pretending to be older or younger than she really is). This will protect the children from predators. Somebody, please think of the children.

Second Suggested Action: Make it a felony for any female to lie about her weight, dress size, number of sexual partners... This would make women talk much less, so society will benefit as well.

Obvious money grab that could set a bad precedent

[zantolak]

Millions of dollars isn't going to un-rape their children, and blaming a website operator for the result of unmonitored, unrestricted communication between its users can only lead to more pointless and dangerous lawsuits. Why do they need someone else to blame here? Why not blame, say, the person who raped their kid? If that isn't enough, why not blame the kid for being stupid enough to fall for it?

They're only doing this because MySpace is part of a massive company that can actually pay out.

50+ hours???

[Anonymous Coward]

Mate, you gotta ask - why are we working 50+ hours a week?

30 years ago - I can understand.

Today?? Paleeeeeez...

Technology has enabled us to do more - the only problem is, possibly we're too greedy and competitive. There will come a day in all of our lifetimes where there'll be more artists and entertainers making a living than slaves to the wage being desk jockeys. My little team or workers (when at work) and I achieve lotsa fold more things in a weekend than in years gone by for larger teams over longer periods of time. These 50+ hour a week families are working for what? Social circles?

Independence. Responsibility. Syndicalism.

We think along similar lines I think - I'm just bitching and it prolly came out a bit wrong.

Or do it on the router

[Animaether]

Just to note, there's a *lot* of routers out there these days that will happily:
- report websites visited if they fit a certain pattern
- block users from visiting websites if they fit a certain pattern
- and do all this with custom schedules

This would take more than a savvy user to get around, as they would need to know your router login / user. Sure, they could reset the router and log in with the defaults, but that's a bit of a dead give-away %)

"My content wants to be free" mentality

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm getting REALLY tired of the victim mentality that people seem to have ANY time something goes wrong in their lives."

Whaaa! The RIAA/MPAA is taking away "MY" content.

I've always wondered about this

[bmajik]

When I was younger, a neighbor kid was shot by one of the other kids in the neighborhood. This was in a horrible town in Texas, and it was an accident.

Even so, the neighbor kid's parents sued the other family and got a pretty good chunk of money. They got a new TV and a bunch of other things that white trash buy when they come into some money.

I was about 10 years old at the time. But even then, it struck me. "Is this what your son was worth to you? This is the replacement? A big TV and more shit in your shit filled house?"

I lost my mom when i was 9, but at no point did i figure that i had any entitlements coming my way from society. From God - sure. He and I were through.. but nobody owed me anything. As a coping mechanism, I asked my dad if I was going to start getting lots of extra presents. When I was younger, we had met a family where the father had passed away and the kids were showered with toys all the time. He and I both knew i was "joking" (joking as a coping mechanism).

I dont think there can be much of anything more devastating to a young girl than rape or other coerced sex acts (I'm assuming what happened here was only partly consentual..) But it's not clear that a big pile of money is going to make that better now. Where is this money going to go? To pay for the counseling the girl needs? For hymen reconstruction? Maybe it could be donated to to a battered womens shelter or something meaningful? To what extent are the parents saying "if you're going to enable the sexual assault of our daughter, that is forsale for $zzz".

It's not clear what mySpace could do better here. Block the display / transfer of pictures from those under 16 to those over 19? It would be one thing if mySpace was ONLY setup to allow sexual exploitation of minors. Putting a bus stop in a bad part of town is arguably as much of risk as the way myspace works.

We hosted a technology day for middle school and high school girls here at work recently. It was pretty cool, but i was pretty alarmed that one of the prizes was a web cam. One of the things we did was a seminar on online safety for kids/girls, but then we turned around and gave out cameras. Oops :)

Re:I've always wondered about this

[_newwave_]

It's not clear what mySpace could do better here. Block the display / transfer of pictures from those under 16 to those over 19?

To an extent, MySpace does this already. Any profile under the age of 17 is automatically private to adults (18 and over) unless they are friends.

Re:I've always wondered about this

[renoX]

> [], a neighbor kid was shot by one of the other kids in the neighborhood. This was in a horrible town in Texas, and it was an accident.

I disagree, if they were kids, this is *not* an accident: they shouldn't have access to weapons in the first place.

Of course, I don't know the specific, but if you have a weapon and don't ensure than kids cannot have access to it, then IMHO you're responsible for whatever happens.

Re:I've always wondered about this

[bmajik]

I don't know where you live, but in much of America, kids start using firearms as young as 7 years old. The nature of the use and the type of fire arm are variables, but the statement is generally true.

150 years ago, every 7-10 year old boy knew how to operate a basic rifle because not knowing meant boy and family being sure-prey for bears, etc.

The exact circumstances of this particular accident are unknown, but i beleive the gun belonged to the boy - it was a new gift or something and he was "showing it off". These kids were also older than me - in their young teens.

In much of America, growing up owning and using firearms is just part of life. Every farmer has at least a shotgun - it's an indispensible tool, and nearly every young farmhand (i.e. every child born of farming parents) grows up learning how to use that tool. A friend of mine used to shoot clay pigeons when she was having relationship trouble.

I agree that there are some responsibility problems here. The kid obviously wasn't following any sort of proper safety rules, no doubt because his parents hadn't demonstrated it to him adequately. That's a different issue than "a kid shouldn't have access to a gun at all" - on that point, I disagree.

In rural highschools all around the midwest, you'll see pickups with rifles in the back window. Teens drove those trucks to school. It's just a part of life. There is no magic age at which gun ownership and use becomes appropriate - it is an issue of maturity and proper training. Obviously, the kid(s) I was writing about had neither.

Re:I've always wondered about this

[renoX]

What you described is the current situation, it doesn't mean that this is a "good" situation..
If memory serves, USA is also the country which has a high rate of weapon accidents, suicide attempt using guns (which obviously have a high probability of success)..

And I stand by what I was saying: a kid shouldn't have access to weapons, a teen is a different situation as you said it depends on the maturity of the teen and if a parent doesn't judge adequately this or train him the proper way, yes he is liable for an injury/death that can happen.

The worst person on Earth

[Kelson]

A MySpace-using Republican crackpot scientist named Steve Ballmer, who dabbles in law, comes from a hated European country, gets US government grants to work for the RIAA, and files a frivolous lawsuit claiming that Grand Theft Auto is to blame for all the spam he sent about how you can get at the firmware for his wireless ethernet device if you'll join his church.

In other news...

[drt1245]

Cigarette companies are now responsible for your cancer if you smoke

In reality myspace shouldnt have even instituted

[Tweekster]

any protections, that is not their job. If you cannot evaluate meeting someone online and then taking it to real life and taking the precautions you are an idiot.

Myspace is not there to protect you and shouldnt have to protect you from yourself.

These are same stupid people that would probably hop right into a strangers car if offered candy.

Re:Slashdot reaction - change to suit the situatio

[mark_hill97]

Children have no expectation of privacy from thier parents. If it was govt. monitoring or corporate monitoring you would bet we would have a problem with it.

wtf, i hate lawyers!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

i want to sue these pricks for being bad parents. can i do that???

the guy that made borat said it best, "thankyou to all the americans who haven't sue'd me."

this is rediculous. "hi, i'm a bad parent and let my 12 year old talk with a 45 year old man for 8-10 hours a day, then i was suprised that something bad happened when myspace babysat my kid for months at a time while i did lines of coke off the ass of a hooker at the local strip club. could this please end with me getting money???"

News Corp

[kahrytan]

News Corp should not be responsible for a persons incompetence. Parents have the tools to keep their kids from visiting websites. It's called a wireless router. Block any site and ability to keep it out of their children's hands so the settings can't be changed.

This kind of lawsuit is exactly the same as AOL being sued for not taking care of sexual predators in chatrooms.

Stupidity Law

[Ender77]

I would like to see a law passed that allow companies to countersue stupid parents who blame other people for their lack of parenting skills.

Playing Devil's Advocate

[pnuema]

Not a single thread supporting the lawsuit modded +3. Mostly comments from people who don't have kids talking about things they have no experience with (i.e. raising children), and smug comments from people who do. I don't care about my karma, so here goes:

1. It is impossible to monitor your kids all of the time. We were all kids once, and we know it is true. This has nothing to do with parenting skill.

2. MySpace has been operating for quite a while knowing full well that child predators are active on their site.

3. MySpace could certainly have done more to validate identity (registration through snail mail?), but that would have eaten into profits.

4. MySpace has made a pile of money (mainly by being bought) while operating in this manner.

So, from where I sit, MySpace has made a pile of money by being user-friendly to child predators. Why shouldn't they get sued again?

Re:Playing Devil's Advocate

[Anonymous Coward]

Could please explain #2 ? And by the same reasoning, any media that was exploited more than once by child predators is in the same way responsible, why aren't these parents suing the company that provides them braodband connection?
And while is true that you can not monitor your kids all of the time you can certantly monitor their on line activity all the time, or at least limit it (is myspace a nest of child predators.. do not let your children access to myspace).

Re:Playing Devil's Advocate

[fireboy1919]

Forget about whose to blame. Lets talk about law. Myspace isn't breaking it.

What gives the government the right to tell Myspace that their service must not be anonymous when most of the rest of the internet gets to be?

If we're going to have a change, it needs to be a change that everybody agrees to make - a change to the system itself; to how we connect to the internet. I don't think that's going to happen, though. The anonymous protection is sort of a double-edged sword: while it keeps predators safe, it also keeps the young anonymous unless they reveal themselves.

Which is very much what I'd like to continue. I was quite angry when the DMV forced my 18 year old sister to put a big, red "UNDER 21" sign on the bottom of her car tag. Leave anonymity alone. Taking it away does more harm than good.

Re:Playing Devil's Advocate

[Jack Sombra]

"2. MySpace has been operating for quite a while knowing full well that child predators are active on their site."
So have malls, cinemas, street corners or pretty much anywhere else you can think of...with the most common place being the family home or a relations home. So your point is? Only way anything could operate and guarantee child predators could not operate is.....actually there is no way except to kill all children in the world

"3. MySpace could certainly have done more to validate identity (registration through snail mail?), but that would have eaten into profits"
No it would have shut the site down, period. And guess what would happen then? Another site would just start up run by someone else

"MySpace has made a pile of money by being user-friendly to child predators. Why shouldn't they get sued again?"
No myspace has made a ton of money being user-friendly, thats it.

Re:Playing Devil's Advocate

[neovoxx]

When I was young, my parents taught me to never get in a car with a stranger.  They also taught me not to talk to strangers.  Given those lessons learned, I don't think it would be so hard to translate those into more modern scenarios such as, "don't talk to strangers online", and more importantly, "don't go out and meet people you meet online, 'cause they're strangers, too".  Why is that so hard?

Re:Playing Devil's Advocate

[AaronHorrocks]

A kid is SEVERAL THOUSAND times more likely to be sexually assaulted by a family friend than someone they meet over the internet. All this rubbish about "on-line predators" is just an escape from the real issues, and real problems that face parents and kids in life.

Re:Playing Devil's Advocate

[IHC Navistar]

Problems with your "points":

Your Point #1: It has everything to do with parenting skill. If you are any bit worth a parent, you WILL be able to find out what they are doing because you will realize the importance of knowing what your kids are up to. Yes, we were all kids, and all of us got caught doing something we wren't supposed to be doing. In my case, it was building a truck mounted potato cannon that could be heard from two zip codes away, imitation nitrocellulose and napalm, and launching rockets from miniature 'silos' buried underneath the backyard lawn. Don't pawn off your shortcoings as a parent on other things and expect them to do your job for you. You don't have to monitor your kids all the time to know what is going on and what shouldn't be going on.

Your Point #2: MySpace undoubtedly knows there are predators operating on their site and there is absolutely no way to tell a predator from Joe Average on the Internet. You can't expect everyone to be able to and eager to provide a credit card #, or driver's license number, or social security number just so they can sign up. What do you propose next.....Shutting down the Internet because ICANN knows full well that child predators operate on the Internet as well? What about the local Mall? I'll bet that there are more child predators at America's malls at any given time than there are on MySpace. So, seeing as how we know, through police records, news reports, and such, that child predators are lurking at malls, does it make sense to shut them down like MySpace? Absolutely not.

Your Point #3: Registration through snail mail? Are you serious? This isn't exactly a warranty card for your new vaccuum cleaner we're talking about. Nobody would care enough about anything online if they has to send in written permission through the mail. Besides, if you can fake it online, you can fake it in the mail. Like I said before, ID can be faked, if you haven't been paying attention to the amount of ID fraud that has been going on for the last decade. It's not about profits, it's about PRACTICALITY. It is very impractical to sort through the millions of requests that MySpace would be slammed with if there had to be someone to physically open the letter, read it, enter the information, and then file the letter as proof. I know it has become popular in society for the Have-Nots to blame there problems and misery on the Haves.

Your Point #4: That's it, blame the guys who have more mone than you. Your envy of the rich is telling and it is a bad argument anyways. So what if they made a pile of money operating their site. If they were catering exclusively to child predators, then that would be flagrantly illegal. What manner are they operating in? They aren't catering exclusively to child predators, or even to predators in any way. They are offering a service that is being used by EVERYONE, but in the wrong way by a few individuals who use it in a way as serving their own illegal and sordid intentions.

MySpace is being user freindly to EVERYONE. It is up to the choices made by the individual, NOT MYSPACE, to use the service in any way that they want.....Just like the entire globe uses the Internet any way they want. From porn to the periodic table, the Internet is what you make of it. Should we ban telephones because child predators use them too? How about vehicles and strip malls. Or, maybe even ban cameras, because child predators have been known to use them in illegal ways. Is this the kind of 'It's-not-my-fault' baloney you teach your kids? Look, if you want to be a parent, know what they are doing. We were all kids, we all got caught doing thins that we weren't supposed to be doing, and had a mom or dad or someone looking over our shoulder asking what was going on.

If you don't want to do what it takes to be a good parent, then you should have kept your pants on in the first place. Child predators were around long be fore MySpace and the Internet, so find something else to blame.

Re:Playing Devil's Advocate

[Servo]

1. I agree. But proper parenting would have greatly decreased the risk to the children in question. We were all kids once, and many of us had parents who taught us to know what to do if we got ourselves into bad situations even if we didn't always tell them the truth.

2. Child predators are active everywhere. Are you able to point out specific profiles on Myspace that are obvious predators or at the very least have giant red flags? No, I didn't think so. Myspace can't either, which is why they've c

3. How does one validate your identity to an organization that doesn't know what to validate against? Except getting your address if you DO turn out to be a predator, what good does validating your street address do? That doesn't prove who you are or what your intent is. And how does another user validate your identity once on the system?

4. Heaven forbid a corporation make money. Given that logic, why aren't we suing playground and amusement park operators for creating anonymous places that children congregate that also has "strangers" present? Don't playgrounds full of children attract child molesters just as much as chat rooms and email?

From where I sit, MySpace has made a pile of money creating a targeted advertising haven for "young people" that includes both children and adults. The only liability they should have in getting sued is if they were ignoring complaints about specific users conduct or knowingly and willingly allowed online predators access.

Re:Playing Devil's Advocate

[Anonymous Coward]

MySpace could certainly have done more to validate identity (registration through snail mail?) I couldn't agree more. There is a virtual pets site (Neopets.com) where if you're under 13 you need to have a parent send/fax a consent form to allow you access to areas of the site where you can talk to other users, and even then there are filters and monitors to keep an eye on things.

I also have to give the female perspective. Being online is a vastly different experience for us as it is for the guys. Don't believe me? Make a female id and go into a chat room. I got online when I was 17 (some eight years ago) and my FIRST experience in a chat room consisted of a bunch of A/S/L type messages from an old guy followed by detailled descriptions of how he was pleasuring himself.

I made a MySpace account last year and deleted it within a week because I was flooded with the same sort of messages. Surely, given that they actively target younger people they are responsibility. If Neopets has successfully maanaged it so can MySpace. They just don't want to, nobody likes to be censored, especially teens, so they would just go elsewhere. Bebo is far superior to MySpace in that it's more difficult to find random people to harrass (and therefore cleaner), but for that simple reason it'll never be quite as popular.

Re:Playing Devil's Advocate

[map200uk]

Why should they get sued? They made a site to allow people to communicate, they did not invite peodphiles or other predators onto the site, but how can they stop it? Ask people for the DOB, to stop under 18s? Somehow i doubt that would work, the issue of people lying arises again As mentioned time and time again, i fully agree, it's the kids and parents fault, the parsnts were happy to leave the kids in front of my space when there were no problems, no something arises from their kids own stupidity they blame myspace? Come on, lets get realistic, should we sue all th clubs where girls have got really drunk and then claim to be abused? Or should people possibly accept that they do have responsibilites and not everything can be pushed onto some other company/person..regardless of myspace making money, it's the parents responsibility to ensure the child isn't enterring dangerous grounds i.e. if swimming in the sea, i do see how my space knew about this etc, but come on theres 1000s of sites like myspace/chat/im services, and what can myspace do? delete accounts where they suspect the person is a predator, when he / she would just create another account plus face being sued for branding someone a predator, or should they monitor all conversations via the site? Which surely infringes upon peoples privacy maybe the parents should have looked at filtering certain sites out, if the kids ae naive enough to lie and believe anything bloke sites where this could happen,

Re:Playing Devil's Advocate

[Kjella]

So, from where I sit, MySpace has made a pile of money by being user-friendly to child predators.

Not fingerprinting and requiring two sets of IDs qualifies as "being user-friendly to child predators"? If I operate any sort of social establishment (cafe, pub, concert, disco, sports tournament, theme park, nevermind a street, camping ground, park, beach) it's my responsibility to have an ID on everyone and know who's chatting to who? You're holding myspace to a completely different standard than any other meeting place I know.

Well, bite me. I want to be able to sign up for myspace or an email account without having to show a real world ID. You can replace everything there with email if you want:

"2. [Hotmail/Yahoo/Gmail] has been operating for quite a while knowing full well that child predators are active on their site.

3. [Hotmail/Yahoo/Gmail] could certainly have done more to validate identity (registration through snail mail?), but that would have eaten into profits.

4. [Hotmail/Yahoo/Gmail] has made a pile of money (mainly by being bought) while operating in this manner.

So, from where I sit, [Hotmail/Yahoo/Gmail] has made a pile of money by being user-friendly to child predators. Why shouldn't they get sued again?"

I won't even go into the formulation that they've "made a pile of money by being user-friendly to child predators", on a day you're pushing your luck then you might say "made a pile of money while..." but you make it sound like pedos are their main source of income.

You go about as if it has to be somebody's fault that things like this happen. By 1, since it's not the parent's fault it's myspace's fault, but I'm sure you know deep down that you're being unreasonable. You're asking myspace to do all the monitoring you don't. Well sometimes the parents may have taught them well, monitored them within reason, but the underaged still makes some stupid decisions, and the only one to blame is the predator. Did you know there are child predators on the streets? Well, by your own logic if you send your kid out there you have only yourself to blame.

Re:Playing Devil's Advocate

[pnuema]

This has nothing to do with the law, or the government. I can sue you for looking at me funny. Civil lawsuits are always about money. This is about a person saying "MySpace made money while creating an environment which caused my family harm." Not really any different than a polluter.

Re:Playing Devil's Advocate

[pnuema]

So have malls, cinemas, street corners or pretty much anywhere else you can think of...with the most common place being the family home or a relations home. So your point is? Only way anything could operate and guarantee child predators could not operate is.....actually there is no way except to kill all children in the world

Except malls often hire security guards, and place cameras around. Cinemas have staff monitoring activities. Yes, child predators operate other places as well - and if a case can be made that some mall knew child predators were operating, and did not take sufficient steps to prevent it while still making a profit, they should get sued too.

No it would have shut the site down, period. And guess what would happen then? Another site would just start up run by someone else

...which proves my point. MySpace chose money over reasonable steps.

Re:Playing Devil's Advocate

[pnuema]

Your Point #1: It has everything to do with parenting skill. If you are any bit worth a parent, you WILL be able to find out what they are doing because you will realize the importance of knowing what your kids are up to. Yes, we were all kids, and all of us got caught doing something we wren't supposed to be doing. In my case, it was building a truck mounted potato cannon that could be heard from two zip codes away, imitation nitrocellulose and napalm, and launching rockets from miniature 'silos' buried underneath the backyard lawn. Don't pawn off your shortcoings as a parent on other things and expect them to do your job for you. You don't have to monitor your kids all the time to know what is going on and what shouldn't be going on.

Irrelevant and incorrect. My abilities as a parent have no bearing on the merits of a lawsuit. And you are dreaming if you think a sixteen year old cannot hide something from his parents. Keep telling yourself that. Truth is, by the time a kid is 12 or so, you have probably done all that can be done as a parent in that regard - you just have to hope your kid doesn't make a stupid decision. Teenagers have a remarkable ability to completely ignore their parents.

Your Point #2: MySpace undoubtedly knows there are predators operating on their site and there is absolutely no way to tell a predator from Joe Average on the Internet. You can't expect everyone to be able to and eager to provide a credit card #, or driver's license number, or social security number just so they can sign up. What do you propose next.....Shutting down the Internet because ICANN knows full well that child predators operate on the Internet as well? What about the local Mall? I'll bet that there are more child predators at America's malls at any given time than there are on MySpace. So, seeing as how we know, through police records, news reports, and such, that child predators are lurking at malls, does it make sense to shut them down like MySpace? Absolutely not.

Who said anything about shutting someone down? We are talking about a lawsuit here - monetary compensation for corporate negligence.

Your Point #3: Registration through snail mail? Are you serious? This isn't exactly a warranty card for your new vaccuum cleaner we're talking about. Nobody would care enough about anything online if they has to send in written permission through the mail. Besides, if you can fake it online, you can fake it in the mail. Like I said before, ID can be faked, if you haven't been paying attention to the amount of ID fraud that has been going on for the last decade. It's not about profits, it's about PRACTICALITY. It is very impractical to sort through the millions of requests that MySpace would be slammed with if there had to be someone to physically open the letter, read it, enter the information, and then file the letter as proof. I know it has become popular in society for the Have-Nots to blame there problems and misery on the Haves.

"We're sorry Juan got raped Mrs. Epstien. Yes, we knew there was a chance this could happen, and yes, we could have taken steps to prevent it, but it just wasn't PRACTICAL." Which is why they are getting sued.

Your Point #4: That's it, blame the guys who have more mone than you. Your envy of the rich is telling and it is a bad argument anyways. So what if they made a pile of money operating their site. If they were catering exclusively to child predators, then that would be flagrantly illegal. What manner are they operating in? They aren't catering exclusively to child predators, or even to predators in any way. They are offering a service that is being used by EVERYONE, but in the wrong way by a few individuals who use it in a way as serving their own illegal and sordid intentions.

Ford a while ago had a problem with their tires on the Explorers. They knew the tires would fail, and that people would die. But they didn't issue a recall right away - they measured the cost to the company those lives repres

I'm waiting for the next sequel...

[haggie]

Online Predator v. Online Alien

You can look it up for yourself...

[Eric Damron]

I was just expressing my opinion of lawyers with the fictional dog story but the bike example was a Slash-dot story. If you want to search you can probably find it.

best bet: router filters

[SethJohnson]

I don't have kids yet, but I'll respond based on the consideration I've given to this topic and my experience as a teenager doing things I wasn't supposed to do.

It's extremely difficult to be a 'good parent' and reasonable monitor your child's behavior on the Internet these days.

The technology to allow parents to do a 'reasonable' job without being 'Big Brother' (as another poster put it) is simply not there.

Keep the computer in a public area such as the kitchen or living room. Limit usage to when parents are home. Cases with keyed locks are the same price as those without.

It's getting better (with MacOS X and Vista parental controls and better filters, etc) but it's still a LONG way off from what needs to be done.

Failing the ability to keep the computer in a public area, I'd caution parents against relying on OS-level tools such as you reference. These can easily be bypassed by a bootable linux distro CD or DVD-R such as Knoppix. On the plus side, circumventing internet filters could be a great way to increase LINUX adoption among the next generation of users.

Seth

A different perspective

[BlazeMiskulin]

I haven't read through all of the responses, but two fairly distinct views are coming out: Parents need to monitor their children to protect them from predators, and parents need to teach their children to protect them from predators. And there's lots of discussion about what is and is not a "good parent".

I'd just like to make a few points:

• If good parenting requires monitoring the teen's activities online, doesn't it also follow that the parents should hover around the mall, the park, the school, the coffee shop, and the mini-golf course?
• With the exception of the one girl who was drugged, there's no mention of what constituted the "sexual assault". These girls all went willingly to a meeting with these men, there is no mention of coercion, force, or gross deception.
• How long had these girls been talking with these men? Could it be that they went to meet them specifically for "romantic" encounters, knowing full well the age differences?

Anyone who believes that 14-16 year old girls don't go looking for sexual encounters--even with significantly older men--has never dealt with teen-age girls. This isn't as one-sided as people want to make it out to be. These men weren't forcing the girls to talk to them. Other than the one young man lying that he was still in high school (he's only 19, so that's not a huge lie), we have no evidence that there was any deception going on at all. The guy who drugged the girl can definitely be considered a predator, but it's fully possible that the other guys simply got involved in a 2-way relationship which progressed to a point where both parties were willing to meet and take it further.

I'm not saying that this was the smartest move on anyone's part, but considering that--depending on the states these people are in--the sexual encounters could have been entirely consensual and legal, the situation needs to be considered from other perspectives.

Having spent many years teaching high school students, I'm quite certain that there's more to the story than is being presented in the article or the law suits.

Re:A different perspective

[ChameleonDave]

Exactly, you are right.

This is prudish hysteria. Young people want to have sex and they always will. Frivolous lawsuits and repressive laws will not stop them, and should not try to.

In the small minority of cases where there is actual rape or sexual assault, then it makes about as much sense to sue MySpace as it would to sue a bar where you met a complete stranger with whom you went home.

There isn't even any need to tell youngsters not to meet people online. Why should they be more wary of the internet? I've met plenty of weird people online, just as I met plenty of weirdos at university and at work, or in night clubs. Meeting weirdos is not a problem. It's doing stuff like going to a hotel room with them that's dangerous. Kids just need to be told that they can talk to whoever they like by whatever means they like, just as long as they don't isolate themselves with the person before really making sure they are OK.

It's just common sense, whatever your age. And something good parents should teach, not enforce.

Zomg, think of the slashchildren!

[Anonymous Coward]

You know the more funny (and ironic) fact is that slashdot (You know? The group that has neither a girlfriend, nor a wife) giving parenting advice (you're bad! You're good!). Why is it the least qualified are the most vocal?

Neutral carrier?

[lmpeters]

I am not a lawyer, but shouldn't MySpace have been able to claim that they are a neutral carrier, and thus not responsible for what people use their website for?

Admittedly they probably lost that option as soon as they started actively monitoring for predators (thus making themselves non-neutral), but I would think that having such a stance from the beginning would have allowed them to have 99.999% or so of these lawsuits thrown out almost immediately.

I plan to sue MySpace too...

[the.house]

on the grounds the girls i met were not as wholesome as their profiles indicated.

Open Note To Parents

[hardwarecollector]

If you think you trust your kid online, think again. A quick look at tinypic or photobucket can give you an idea of what your 'innocent' children are doing online. MySpace get's all the attention, but Xanga is just as culpable. It's just harder hide things on Xanga. MySpace and Xanga have become the new babysitters, much like television. I prided myself on tracking what my 14 year old did online, but what I discovered when he accidentally left his MySpace logged in truly opened my eyes. Since then I have installed monitoring software on his computer so I have access to ALL his online activity. Parents, if you don't know what your children are doing online, you have no one to blame but yourselves.

Re:I'm sure your mom would be proud

[crimson30]

I find personally offensive that anyone would be so opposed to what the parent poster had to say and that anyone would defend the disgusting lifestyle that was being criticized.

right..

[robpoe]

Like it's MySpace's fault for

(1) not controlling the kids (isn't that the PARENT'S responsibility?)
(2) letting the kids go meet said predator

tagged thinkofthechildren

[smoker2]

I think that's mainly the problem here !

It should read thinkofthechildrenButOnlyIfThey'reRelatedToYouSome howOtherwiseYouAreAPervert

Making Social Technologies Socially Responsible

[JasonNolan]

This suing is a great thing, IMHO. Of course parents have a responsibility. And children should be virtually street-proofed. But technologies have to provide those tools to allow for parents to do the best job. And it is too eash for developers to claim neutrality. And it is all to easy to wake them up with recourse to the courts. I have a bias, because I train educators in how to use technology with young children. My personal opinion is that leaving children online without an adult knowing what's going on is a problem. Like leaving them at home with guns before someone got the idea of locked cabinets and saftey, or putting labels on products. I like what Second Life is doing, keeping spaces separate, it a good idea. I reminds me of Amy Bruckman's work with MOOsecrossing at MIT in the 90s. In order for me to have access to a space that had children in, lots of paperwork would need to be done. In real life, to work with children, I have a criminal background check done, as do all my students. Only seems reasonable. SO, how could software and technology help make children safer WHILE encouraging parents to be involved with use? Well there are many options. I would consider requiring some form of identity ID for these sites, but one that protects identity from casual observances, while keeping files that would ensure a contiguous relationship between the person online and the person irl. Personally, I think it is just fine for someone to pretend what they are not. But do they have the right to do so without it being known? What if, for example, a youth under the age of 18 wants to pretend she or he is older. Well, that's well and good. In a blog, it is easy to see through this as soon as you read back on posts and see how the narrative plays out over time. And if not, you know that you're just reading people's stories, not reading them. But this sort of thing doesn't really exist in myspace. It is more of an interactive self-promotional tool. It is a self-marketting space. It is all hype without much space for depth or content. Of course that's why younger folks, with out much depth or content, like it. The mall rather than the library. But, to contextualize the digression, if there was a screen widget that merely flagged someone as 'not what they seem' we could have a mental marker that though we may interact with this individual as per their persona, we would realize the socially constructed nature of that persona. You might not think that this is necessary, because we know that all online identity is constructed, and is at best a filtered representation of the self. But this is learned. And when relative newbies go online and present themselves as they think they are, more like who they want to be seen as, they fall into the trap of seeing others as being as they appear. And a little blinky light identifying people as 'not what they seem' when their online persona differs from their stored data doesn't stop one from identity workshopping, but it does provide a reminder that things are not what they seem. Another interesting possibility would be parental reports. A parent getting a report of who the child has talked to being made available, not necessarily what is said, but that something was said. I had this experience where I was conversing with a very young family member. I let it be known that though I would respect this individual's privacy, if anything went wrong or I thought this persona's health or saftey was compromised, I would inform parents and authorities. That sense of 'pretty good privacy' to re-purpose the term, is what I'm speaking towards. Respecting the social rights of children to communicate, but recognize that online communication should have a monitoring feature that keeps track of who is talking to whom, when children are involved. Children are not a parent's sole responsibility, they are a shared social responsibility, at least in the parts of the world where we appreciate social support networks, universal healthcare and equitable educational opportunities. We want children to be cared for

Face it

[Anonymous Coward]

Girls love getting their pussies fucked. That's the way it is.

Killing The Messenger

[alien9]

As a parent of two, I cannot agree with this crappy attempt to push away responsabilities. In a strict view that is just to kill the messenger. Blame another one for their miscare and absence in children formation. Sure child abusers must be disconnected and condemned, and pursued wherever they are. I use to think of myspace or equivalents as a club where you can be approved with low criteria. And I am very sure kids must be aware of online menaces just the same manner we warn them about unknown people down the street, or we tell them to look aside before crossing.... Hell, I can't believe America's power will last untill this confused, super-protected, leashed generation becomes the so called adults. The attempt to put every problem to a court is just an escape, and in US it became an industry.

Usual Bullshit Lawsuit

[Master of Transhuman]

from people who can't take responsibility for their own actions.

"Gotta blame anybody and everybody but ME! (And it would nice to take their money, too!)"

Stupid human monkey tricks.

This is what you get when you have "laws" made by chimpanzees.