GIRL, 14, SUES MY SPACE
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GIRL, 14, SUES MY SPACE
| Tue, 06-20-2006 - 12:34pm |
I thought this was interesting, below I've supplied the link to the story. The girl is suing my space over not taking sufficient steps to protect underage members. Hmmmm. What do you say about that?

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I really despise MySpace and every on line page like it....On the one hand, her parents are still responsible for her and they are the ones who should be held partially responsible for their dd's activities on line. Much as I hate to admit it, and even though though the police involved in our case said there was nothing more we could have done to protect our dd, there probably was and I carry some guilt about that. When my dd was approached and lured off the internet, she was limited to 1 hour per day! Plus, we had passwords in place to get on the computer and another to use the internet - she needed us to sign her on. Despite those efforts and restrictions, she was still able to be lured off the internet.
A portion of the responsibility lies with the parents, the child, and, yes, MySpace.
The child because I find it hard to believe that a 14 y/o girl hasn't heard of read about or been informed off all the dangers lurking on line....kind of goes in hand with the "don't talk to strangers" idealogy she learned as a little kid, don't you think? "don't tell people your address, don't give out your phone number, don't ride in cars," etc."
And finally, MySpace. MySpace because the are selling a product. Don't cigarette companies and those who produce and manufacture alcohol have to take responsibility for thier product? Yes, they do. They are required to have warnings posted on each package. They have to spend a certain dollar amount each year on educational programs for children on the dangers of smoking or consuming alcohol. In fact, ALL companies of ALL products carry some kind of warning on them if you take a real close look. Blow up toys, water pistols, games, dolls, hair dryers, etc. I think that the folks at MySpace, just like most big businesses are looking at thier bottom line in profits and not on the consequences of using thier product. They can limit the amount of information permissible on thier webpages - there are filters that they can place in line to limit certain levels of information allowed on the site. They can limit the fields of information they offer thier clients - making it more difficult for kids to place too much personal info on there.
There are lots of things or ways that we can ALL take actions to protect our youngsters and teens. Ultimately, it's up to the parents to instill in thier children the importance of thier personal safety as well as set up guidelines, boundaries and limits. Just like the telephone and tv, time constraints should also be enforced on the computer. And even all those restrictions do not guarantee that your child will be safe all the time, on line or not.
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