MySpace Age Verification - for Parents

unlametheweak writes "North Carolina is thinking of the children by passing a law requiring parents to verify they are parents before letting their children onto social networking sites. Notwithstanding the whole concept of an Internet ID for people in general; children are now being tracked by cellular phones with GPS, spied upon with Parent Controls (MS Vista has built-in parental spyware), and also strategically placed Nanny Cams, keyboard loggers, etc. 'Few of the proposals we've seen so far seem like good ways to [protect children], but North Carolina's approach at least has the virtue of novelty--unlike most video game legislation, which relies on similar rhetoric but has been almost universally struck down by the courts, sometimes at great cost to the states.' Is the zoo-like Minority Report world in which children are growing up in today doing more harm than good? How will this affect a 14 year old, much less a 17 year old "child"?"

Comments

Re:17 year olds are not children

[brunascle]

then, in your opinion, at what age does this immaturity magically disappear?

Facebook what?

[drgonzo59]

Why do children need to be on social networking sites? Why can't they just invite their friends over and talk to them face to face. I didn't have facebook and myspace growing and I turned out alright (and I am not that old). Billions of people in the world manage to live happy lives without myspace or facebook, if they can do it, so can the kids. Buy them some books, a puzzle kit or install a basketball hoop outside and let them play. This whole thing about facebook and all these sites is just ridiculous. If the kids just have to have a computer, don't connect it to the net, and then let them do "research" when the parents are home on the living-room computer.