|
MySpace strikes safety deal
15/01/2008 07:34 - (SA)
New York - Under mounting pressure from law enforcement and parents, the social networking site MySpace agreed to take steps to protect youngsters from online sexual predators and bullies, including searching for ways to better verify users' ages.
The popular online hangout will create a task force of industry professionals to improve the safety of users, and other social-networking sites will be invited to participate.
"We must keep telling children that they're not just typing into a computer. They're sharing themselves with the world," North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said on Monday.
MySpace, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, has more than 200 million registered users worldwide, and Facebook claims more than 61 million active users.
The deal with 49 of the 50 US states comes as sites such as MySpace and Facebook have grown exponentially in recent years, with teenagers making up a large part of their membership. This has created a new venue for sexual predators who lie about their age to lure young victims and for cyberbullies who send threatening and anonymous messages.
But Monday's announcement was short on specifics about how improvements would be carried out. Skeptics are doubtful that MySpace and similar sites can eliminate the problem because age-verification technology is difficult to implement and predators are good at circumventing restrictions.
Parry Aftab, executive director of Wiredsafety.org, a children's internet safety group, said the agreement was a good first step but could have unforeseen consequences.
Lured via MySpace
"There's no system that will work for age verification without putting kids at risk," she said. "Age verification requires that you have a database of kids and if you do, that database is available to hackers and anyone who can get into it."
Aftab estimates that 20% of teens have met someone online that they had never met in person, and there are numerous examples of sexual abuse arising from MySpace encounters.
A 15-year-old girl from Texas was allegedly lured to a meeting, drugged and assaulted in 2006 by an adult MySpace user. In another case, a man got 14 years in prison for using MySpace to set up a sexual encounter with an 11-year-old Connecticut girl. A 16-year-old New York girl ran away to Puerto Rico with a man she met on MySpace.
On Monday, prosecutors in New York announced that two girls younger than 15 were lured via MySpace to the home of a couple who allegedly plied them with alcohol, engaged them in group sex and took them to a strip club, where the girls danced on stage.
The only state not joining the agreement was Texas, where the attorney general said he cannot support the effort unless it takes action to verify people's ages.
"We do not believe that MySpace.com - or any other social-networking site - can adequately protect minors" without an age-verification system, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said. "We are concerned that our signing the joint statement would be misperceived as an endorsement of the inadequate safety measures."
Investigators have grown increasingly interested in the social networking sites in their search for sexual offenders. New York investigators said they set up Facebook profiles last year as 12- to 14-year olds and were quickly contacted by users looking for sex.
Over 100 safety and security innovations
Over the last two years, MySpace said it has implemented more than 100 safety and security innovations, including identifying predators and kicking them off the site and pushing for tougher laws in this area. The company also said it hopes other sites follow its lead in pushing for tougher standards.
"We thank the attorneys general for a thoughtful and constructive conversation on internet safety," MySpace Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam said. "This is an industrywide challenge, and we must all work together to create a safer internet."
Facebook said it welcomed the increased vigilance.
"We are happy to work further with the states to develop and deploy strategies to protect kids online," the company said.
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.
MySpace said it was combing through sex offender registries to identify predators, who would then be kicked off the site. But sex offenders are unlikely to open an account under their real names, as are underage children.
Anthony Apreda, a 12-year-old from New Jersey, said he lied about his age to create a MySpace account two years ago. He said he was 18.
"When people go on MySpace they lie about their age. Everyone lies about their age," he said. "You just put an age and a date and you just put it on there."
MySpace said it is creating a database where parents can submit children's e-mail addresses to prevent their children from setting up profiles.
- AP
|
.jpg)
