MySpace Agrees to New Safety Measures:
First, let me hit you with just the first paragraph from the AP article that’s making the rounds about MySpace’s proposed new safety measures.
Under mounting pressure from law enforcement and parents, MySpace agreed Monday to take steps to protect youngsters from online sexual predators and bullies, including searching for ways to better verify users’ ages.
The fact that parents are pressuring MySpace is a joke. If parents were actually parenting, I would say more than half the stories on this site wouldn’t have happened.
Here are some of the things MySpace said they will do for lax parents. Ok, I made up the lax parents part.
Under the agreement, profiles for users under age 16 will be set to private so no strangers can get information from their profile; users can block anyone over 18 from contacting them; and people over 18 cannot add anyone under 16 as a friend in their network unless they have their last name or their e-mail address.
All of these can be circumvented by the underage user if the parents aren’t paying attention.
Another new feature will be the following…
MySpace said it is in the process of creating a database where parents can submit children’s e-mail addresses to prevent their children from setting up profiles.
And it only takes your kid about a minute to set up another e-mail address that you don’t know about.
In my opinion, age verification won’t work either, even if you need a credit card to sign up with MySpace. First of all, MySpace will never do that because their userbase will plummet. Secondly, it wouldn’t take much for a kid to slide the credit card out of mom or dad’s wallet, use it to sign up on MySpace, then slide back unnoticed.
There is no greater security measure than good parenting.
Thanks to Bay for the link.
