Not to get all Bill O’Reilly on you, but does anyone find it rather lame that parents are suing MySpace because thier teenage daughters were sexually assaulted by weirdos they met while using the service? CNET reports that families from New York, Texas, Pennsylvania and South Carolina have filed seperate civil suits against MySpace and parent company News Corp., alleging negligence, recklessness, fraud and negligent misrepresentation.
How is MySpace negligent and reckless for providing a platform for people to post pictures and chat? If you went home with a psychopath you met at the Hard Rock Cafe and he stole your kidney, you wouldn’t sue the Hard Rock Cafe. So what’s the difference?
Long before Dennis Miller turned into a sour, bitter old Republican, he used to rant about how America was too conerned about “the children” and that the public sphere was being dumbed down by moms on a jihad for a G-rated world. This MySpace lawsuit strikes me as an example of what Miller was talking about. Our legitimate concern for children can be so easily misdirected. MySpace can’t possibly be expected to guarantee the safety of its users.
According to CNET, MySpace will develop a software program called Zephyr to help parents monitor their kid’s activity on MySpace.
I have to agree. My personal opinion…parents need to get their kids’ heads away the computer and back into the real world. MySpace is populated by legions of faux personalities, all pretending to be something they’re not. The more detached our children are from the real world (and the more attached they become to internet society), the less they’ll be able to relate to reality.
Of course, this is much like my parents complaining how television would melt the morals of my generation. Then again, as I look around, maybe they had a point.