Slashdot Mirror
MySpace Not Guilty in Child Assault Case
An anonymous reader writes "The Washington Post reports that a Texas judge dismissed a $30 million case against MySpace for their role in a child assault case. 19-year old Peter Solis lied about his age on MySpace to gain the confidence of a 13-year old girl. The judge ruled, 'To impose a duty under these circumstances for MySpace to confirm or determine the age of each applicant, with liability resulting from negligence in performing or not performing duty, would of course stop MySpace's business in its tracks and close this avenue of communication.'" What do you think? Good call?
So, now that we have seen "common sense" used in a court case, can we use this as precedent for all future rulings?
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
What do you think? Good call?
Is the phone company responsible for verifying the age of people talking so a 19 year old can't lie to a 13 year old and then commit a crime? How about newspaper personal ads, are the newspaper's responsible? What ISPs who provide e-mail accounts? You know those companies that create voice boxes for people with throat cancer? Are they responsible for verifying the age of the person using them so they cannot be misused for this same purpose?
Blaming the medium or the tools is just plain stupid. This was, of course, a correct decision
This is like suing blockbuster because my membership card says "Gulliver" (which isn't my name - but they didn't check!), and somebody were to accept my (written in ink) blockbuster card as some form of ID. Say the bank were to loan a hundered thousand dollars to "Gulliver McMadeUpName", and then sue Blockbuster when I defaulted.
This was a ridiculous and frivolous suit. MySpace has no obligation to verify the truth of any information any random person posts. They aren't bondsmen.
The ramifications if this were taken seriously would be huge. Every web forum, including slashdot, would have to perform thorough background checks with 3 forms of government ID, before accepting members.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
It's a good call.
It's the parent's responsibility to keep an eye on their kid, including their internet activity (even if that is inconvenient or time-consuming for the parent).
Suing Myspace is like suing the phone company - they're only the medium, ma'am.
-Styopa
Although the judge's conclusion was correct, the reasoning he applied was flawed: it's not that MySpace shouldn't be liable because its business model depends on it, it's that MySpace shouldn't be liable because it's the parents' responsibility to care for their kids, and MySpace isn't anybody's parent.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
This ruling, hopefully, will stop all of those propositions the government keep trying to make to ensure that everyone will somehow be responsible for ensuring that children don't get onto their site.
This seems to finally accept that it's just not possible to correctly validate the information that everyone gives you online.
For the same reason they won't be able to identify when people claim to be younger, they won't be able to stop kids from saying they're old enough to be there.
Depending on the level of court making this decision (and wether or not this establishes precedent) this might make it more difficult to sa, for example, that porn vendors are responsible for confirming that all applicants aren't kids or registered sex offenders. It's simply not possible to do it.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
It's because he isn't black.
Seriously, I'm actually for the death penalty, but Texas' justice system is horribly racist, at least at that level.
The enemies of Democracy are
I really want to know more about the psychology of this and how it comes about. I mean... who wants to be with a 13 yo anyway? Though, 19 meh... I have known 19 year olds who have dated 13 year olds, its usually a case of an overly marture 13 year old and an immature 19 year old. Hell, one of my best friends today was 19 and dated my sister when she was 14 and going on 15.
:)
I can attest that at 19, he wasn't quite at her level then. At 28, he still isn't now, but thats another story
But I digress... and far. This is an issue of assault more than age. Who cares how old he was? What he did was wrong at any age where the person can tell right from wrong. I really don't see how age verification will help. 13 year olds arn't that hard to talk into doing things that their authority figures don't approve of, hell he might have had an easier time with his real age... 13 year olds think 19 year olds are cool and mature.
The reason I say I want to know more about it, was I saw those dateline shows where they caught and outed a bunch of guys who did this stuff and interviewed them. It was sobering. Sobering that it was happening, and sobering to see these guys interviewd.
They seemed.... mostly normal. The only thing really different about them seemed to be that they seemed rather socially undeveloped. I really got the feeling they were going after young easily influenced girls because, they seemed to lack the social skills to get a girl their own age. As a slashdot geek, I am pretty familiar with some of the behavious.
I guess what bugs me, is I saw myself at different points in my life in their stories and thought, that with a slightly different values, and influences in my life, could I have been one of these guys showing up at a 13 year olds house with a six pack of cheap malt beverages?
While its easy to deamonize people who try to do, or do bad things, and we have to deal with this from a criminal justice standpoint when it happens. However, shouldn't we be looking at our society and how we can help to not create people who are in the situation where a 13 year old starts to look like a viable option?
It seems to me like these guys needed something. It wasn't a 13 year old girl they really needed, but it wasn't anything that time in jail was going to fix either. Most of them had even seen the show in the past, so the threat of incarceration certainly wasn't stopping them.
I think it behooves us to understand these issues at a deeper level, and try to solve them from their source rather than their symptoms.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Myspace is not liable for this any more than the phone company is liable for the prank and threatening phone calls. I don't know about the rest of the /. community, but I am dead tired of the continuous attempts to impose liability on the carrier for the content. This goes to the very core of undermining the openness and freedom of the internet, as a neutral medium for communication and sharing of information. Verdict for the plaintiff would have been a horrible precedent.
This is a sick thing that happened and I think the guy should be jailed for life or worse but, what were the parents doing?!? I have to teenagers and while I won't delude myself in thinking I know everything that goes on in their lives, I have a fair idea about most of it (I hope).
I am in my son's WOW guild so I know them, I play Halo on occasion (it sucks getting my ass kicked so much) with him and his other friends. They are welcome in my house as long as they follow the rules.
I know my daughter likes manga, anime, country music, who her friends are, know their names and individual interests etc. etc.etc. Quality time is total b#$$s%^&, you have to spend time with them and know what is going on in their lives.
Wonder if her parents ever looked at her MySpace to see what she thinks, likes or is worried about...
MySpace it not at fault here, something is/was going on in that girl's life that put her in a position to want to go off and meet someone without telling her parents or at least without escort. The ball was not in MySpace's court.
I'm glad a judge had common sense on MySpace's behalf. People want to shift blame to the medium used for the meeting, not the people in the real world who are at fault. The only people to blame in this case are the parents and the guy who committed the crime. It was the parent's job to know what their child was doing and to prevent her from meeting people like this. The world is full of bad people, but it's the parent's jobs to protect their children. Of course, this in no way removes responsibility for the crime from the guy. All I'm saying is that HE is responsible for committing the crime and the parents are responsible for not preventing their child from falling victim to him.
The judge ruled, 'To impose a duty under these circumstances for MySpace to confirm or determine the age of each applicant, with liability resulting from negligence in performing or not performing duty, would of course stop MySpace's business in its tracks and close this avenue of communication.'"
So you're telling me that you had a chance to finally get rid of the atrocity that is MySpace and you DIDN'T???
Hmm, MySpace's business model would collapse if we rule against them. Therefore, it must be OK.
Right decision, wrong reason.
-Dave
It's odd to say it, but I don't think this ruling is "right". Particularly not the precedent that it sets. The judge expressed concern for MySpace's business future and for the other users of the service. Seriously, this is not "common sense", this is "big business rules".
I *do* think that the outcome is correct - but the wrong reasons were given. The correct reason would have been more directly related to the notion of personal responsibility. Not this "MySpace can't be responsible, because, oh gosh, they'd lose money if they were" crap.
Common sense my arse. The outcome matches common sense, but not the rationale. I just hope it's not used as a precedent.
A parent doesn't have to monitor a child's every move to protect them. All they have to do is be honest and open with them and give them the information they need to protect themselves.
I can't speak for any other kids, but I stopped listening to MY parents because they were hypocritical, and otherwise generally full of shit. My dad would tell me not to smoke, but he would smoke in the car when he was taking me places and not stop when I asked him to, and as a child I was actually allergic to cigarette smoke. My mom would make up answers to questions to which she did not know the answer, maybe she thought it was fun or her insecurity would not allow her to not know the answer. Regardless, I rapidly stopped giving a shit about my parents' opinions and formed my own decisions. I am lucky enough to have been a pretty bright kid and to have been very into reading, and to have read a lot of books with very positive messages, and this served me a whole lot better than it could have.
If a parent treats a child with respect, the child will respond with respect. Unfortunately, most parents (including mine) didn't really get that. They were only concerned with me respecting them. They didn't really put effort into going the other direction until I was already an adult. But then, I moved out of the house when I was fifteen and moved in with my (considerably older) girlfriend. So they kind of had to wake up and accept that I was not their little boy any more, and in fact had not been for many years.
That's funny, because your comment very much makes it seem like you ARE endorsing these things, because you see the denial of these things as denying parents tools that would help them do their job, and you began the sentence with "Yet" as if you were denying that standpoint.
Incidentally, tracking devices exist now and if you can get your kid to wear it and not pass it off to another kid, that's cool, but they will eventually figure out a way to get the thing off. It's a big ugly watch-thing that locks onto their wrist. Better hope it doesn't get caught in anything.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
then who should?
Communication sites like myspace (though not myspace in particular) are too important to the human race to damage over the abuse of one person. People are abused day in, day out, around the world. Closing or damaging myspace's ability to permit free communications will not solve this issue.
We must move forward as a species - not backwards. Our future lies in free exchange of ideas and communications, and anything that works contrary to this should be opposed.
We're a planet of billions. Keep things in perspective.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
if you dont have their number already?
Man, if only someone put together a list of phone numbers and published them... let's say in a big thick book. Then they could sell ad space and make millions!
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
However, this call was a necessary one. Although social networking sites should do what they can to help protect its users, they can't be held responsible for lousy parenting!
In today's society, everyone is always trying to blame someone else, or sue someone else. No one takes the blame for what they've done and the mistakes they've made to cause badness. And who pays the price? Well, sadly, one of the people who pays the price is kids. What happened to the day when parents' top priority was their kids? Nowadays, parents are more concerned with money and the "easy way out", than taking care of their kid.
Why on earth was a 13 year old girl able to talk to some stranger online, meet with him, without her parents ever knowing? Yes, the guy is a scoundrel. Yes, she was just a little girl. But why weren't her parents there to protect her? Why weren't they there to know exactly what she's doing online, talk to her, find out why she feels the need to meet people online (probably lonely, not many friends at school, not many boys interested in her at school, etc.). And not just confronting her and telling her "you're grounded, no more internet". They need to find out the cause of her feeling she needs to do this, and try to help.
Lastly, not every guy online is a scoundrel. Maybe this Pete Solis was, but if the girl's parents had been there to talk to her, and maybe even offer to go meet this guy with her - what kind of guy who's looking to assault a 13 year old would agree to that? He would bail out in a second, while on the other hand any guy who has a shred of decency would accept. That's the other problem with parents these days - they automatically assume the worst, and of course teenagers know this. So the teenager has no way of trusting their parent, because they know that just bringing this up with them will mean "no more internet".
So, the real issue here is, why are parents allowing their young girls to get conned online, and what are we doing to resolve this issue?
I find it sick that parents will try to cash in on their own failure as parents and the misfortune of their child. Why seek 30 million? Why not seek criminal charges if they truly feel the operators of myspace were resp for what happened to their child? 30 million is a money grab. Seeking criminal chrages is seeking justice. Two very different things.
I agree absolutely. It's all about the culture. It has nothing to do with race, EXCEPT that people who see themselves as a certain race decide or are pressured to decide that they should be in a certain culture because of their race. Actually, I hesitate to even use the term race, because genetic studies are showing that every modern "race" is actually a composite of the earliest groups. Modern "races" have varying degrees of relation to each other, so for example a 'black person' who has ancestors who re-immigrated to Africa from the middle east might actually be ethnically closer to a 'white person' from Lebanon than to another 'black person'. Also that Lebanese 'white person' might have very little in common with a Swedish 'white person'. So as many people have known for a while, race is mostly an artificial social construct.
The very important super extra critical idea everyone needs to get somehow, is that you are free to join any culture you want.. Want to be an up-tight protestant disciplinarian but your skin is really dark? That's ok! Want to be cyberpunk?.. well that demographic is already open to anybody, though some ghetto people might not realize it because they are functionally illiterate. Etc..
Then, we can go one step further and criticize cultures for their failings, perhaps even combine the best aspects of different cultures. How about combining the work ethic, systematic approach of anglo-american culture with the care for your wife and family from mexican culture.. lose the isolation and lack of solidarity from anglo culture, lose machoism and the pressure for total conformity from mexican culture, compromise and just have 2 kids.. what do you get? A better outcome for all. I'd bet on it.
Multiculturalism is a dead-end street because it commits you to absurd ideas, for example you'd have to say that the ghetto gang culture of macho violence is as hunky-dory as anything else, because it's right for them, within their own culture, and follows the rules which the majority of their subgroup has effectively agreed to. Hey if you think that right and wrong are totally relative, and you think it's just fine and dandy if someone gets shot, or lives in fear of getting shot, then this view makes sense. To me, it's pretty nutty.
It also had an inherent contradiction. Everyone's culture is equally as good, so everyone is as likely to be successful. But, at the same time, multiculti advocates want to say that everyone's culture's way of life is just as healthy as anyone else's. So a culture that does not think it is important to read to or otherwise educate your kids (especially girls) is somehow as likely to produce a successful citizen and also can't be criticized for not reading to their kids? Am I missing something here? Or is the key that multiculti argues ultimately that a sub-literate person who lives on nothing but second-hand folk knowledge and knows little about anything outside their subgroup is just as good as anybody else? So in other words, an anti-social gangsta from the ghetto who looks after his peeps and is fairly likely to bust a cap in your ass for complaining about his nightclub-class radio playing 12 hours a day is someone you're just as happy living with as someone who has been training from day 1 to be quiet, thoughtful, and kind? Does that make any kind of sense?
No..... and it's the culture at fault. It's time to take culture off the holy dais where it sits, untouchable. Let's get religion down while we're at it and kick both balls around. We're not going good places otherwise.
-p
What are you uggesting? We should look at monority's more to salve all our violent crime? Or should we let the majority of the minority convicted offenders go to improve the ratio A bit?
The facts are that the types of crimes blacks tend to commit that lend themselves t the death penalty by far out number the same for whites. This isn't neccesarily racist either. Living conditions tend to dictate the types of crimes people are invovled in. Poor people commit different styles of robery then rich people do and so on. This isn't to say that the say crime and way it was commited cannot be the same, it just isn't always. Now, If i was to ask you who was more likley to kill someone durring a robbery? How about a car jacking? How many prominent blacks walking through a poor area get mugged because it is thought they have money? Now whites? You watch cops on TV, who is the most likley types of person to run? How about shoot back at the cops of do something that might get an officer killed?
Education, living conditions, social pressures, money and numerous other things that could be bad choices cause the type of crimes and how it was commited to be different. These differences can often be the difference in life or the death penalty. There is nothing racist about it. Even the fact that a better defence sometimes results in less severe punishments aren't racist.
What is racists is, looking at the numbers and claiming something that isn't there. The solution isn't letting letting a bunch of minorities go because they commited a certain crime a certain way. And it isn't convicting the oposite race of more crimes when they didn't commit them or commit them in the ways the laws says is most deserving of the seath penalty.