State wants MySpace to raise minimum age

CNN ^ | 5-4-2006 | CNN

[mysterio]

This is so stupid. Myspace should tell Massachusetts to get bent or ignore them entirely.

More myspace panic from people watching too much dateline.

[HEY4QDEMS]

More free facetime for local idiot Tom Reilly.

If wins the governors race we are in for long four years.

He's a complete ass.

[So Cal Rocket]

Massachusetts Tuesday called on popular teen social networking Web site MySpace.com to strengthen protection of children against sexual predators, including raising the minimum age for users to 18 from 14.

The arrest Tuesday of a 27-year-old man in Connecticut on charges of illegal sexual contact with a 13-year-old girl he met through MySpace

More useless legislation... note the age of the girl... Myspace's minimum age is already 14, so raising it to 18 wouldn't have changed a thing here.

[fhlh]

Datelies NBC....


Anyway...I see two things here.

1. an attempt at government to place more power over the people.

2. bad parenting.

[maryz]

Myspace should tell Massachusetts to get bent or ignore them entirely.

An article in today's Boston Herald noted that if Myspace becomes unavailable to young teens, they'll just go to other similar websites -- and those may not cooperate with law enforcement as well as Myspace does.

But, hey, Tom Reilly's running for governor and isn't the shoo-in he started as (thank God!).

[Seruzawa]

Oh yeah. That's gonna help. Of course there will be no way to fake one's age OVER THE FREAKING INTERNET!

What a moron.

[coconutt2000]

It used to be 18+.

Didn't stop the kids from lying about their age to get in.

The new way that MySpace handles the profiles of minors is you have to be a member of a friend list for that profile in order to view it. Aside from the initial photo on the profile, other information is all locked down and the profile is generally treated as private.

Now the flow of people lying about their age is heading in the other direction, with people claiming to be a young minor so their profiles will be locked.

At least, that's how I imagine it works. I have a fair number of minors who belong to my political blog's friends list. Other than that, I don't come across minor profiles often who are not on my list except when they request to join or message me one of those uninformed, anti-conservative rants. Usually I just get friend requests though. :-)

[mak5]

Actually, MySpace should tell Massachussets to put a maximum age on their politicians.

[the_Watchman]

Let's review the facts: The perp attempts to meet a 13 year-old girl. This alarms everybody in Mass so that they want the minimum age raised from 14 to 18.

Does anyone see a disconnect here?

[Lunatic Fringe]

Here's an idea, instead of depending on the state to parent your kids... how 'bout you people BE PARENTS?!?!?!

[llevrok]

Another dumb law that can not be enforced other than making yet another opprtunity for trial lawyers (Yeah, like I am going to tell some young chick in a bar that I am 55 !)

[rfreedom4u]

This wouldn't work because all teens have to do is lie about their birthdays. DUH!

[Disturbin]

"Actually, MySpace should tell Massachussets to put a maximum age on their politicians."

Good one. You mean Teddy couldn't lie to us and pretend he's 50? He doesn't look a day over 80!

[freedumb2003]

Not only is this stupid, unenforcable and futile but it over-reaches.

The State doesn't have the authority to put any restrictions on Internet sites.

[smith288]

This wouldn't work because all teens have to do is lie about their birthdays. DUH!

Im sure the text of the bill would specifically require kids to not fabricate their age. Because kids listen so well when told what to do. ;)

[ran15]

One funny thing is we criticize the Chinese for getting google and other companies to put in tons of rules and restrictions. Then we do basically the same thing.

The internet should be kept completely free imo... and luckily in most of the world they don't have the means to police it anyway.

Also the government's definition of a minor is not the same definition as a normal person's. For example pedophilia to them could be a 20 year old female sleeping with a 17 year old male.

[DBrow]

The myspace thing has been building for a while now. There are many MSM articles discussing the "problem" with myspace, but rarely other popular teen sites (Livejournal, Xanga...).

This is a tactic from Saul Alinsky's book- put a single face on your target. He intended it to be a person; rather than target a corporation, target the CFO or VP by name.

The target is the internet and if that goal were made plain everyone would get squeamish and jumpy. By making it just myspace and making it "children's safety from sexual predators" many many more people will willingly go along. With 2,000,000 accounts it only takes .002% of them to have a problem that yields a high profile story each week.

Most proposals to "fix" myspace call for a way to positively identify who is online. When Dan Rather was having his little difficulty, four newspapers assigned teams of internet researchers- not to find out who typed the fakes or who faxed them to Mapes, but to FIND BUCKHEAD. Positive ID is one goal, and I'm sure there are others.

One of the things that makes FR, DailyK, DU and other sites (including blogs) work is the anonymity that protects a web activist from having a CBS news crew at your door and a chopper overhead with News5 painted on its abdomen. If a crime is committed the site can reveal the criminal on presentation of a warrant, but for the crime of free speech and annoying a politician, the identity is difficult to get and it's hard to control the spread of information. They can't "put a face" on the information.

My point in this ramble? Make no mistake it's not myspace they are after to "reform", it's the internet as a whole they need to control.

For the children.

[libstripper]

MySpace is actually a valuable tool for parents who want to know what their teenagers are thinking. Kids, somehow believing what they post to it is private, post material to it that, in the past, would have gone into their private diaries. All a smart parent kees to do is give his kid a MySpace account and look at it from time to time to see what's going on in the kid's head. School administrators can also use it the same way and might even be able to cut off a Columbine before it happens.

[mysterio]

School administrators can also use it the same way and might even be able to cut off a Columbine before it happens.

Actually, one was stopped about a week ago because of Myspace.