Broken Toys

I know they won’t, but wouldn’t it be nice if MySpace drug the mom though the mud on this? A mom who didn’t tell her 14 year old girl not to go home with strange men from school? (14 years old is the myspace minimum age btw, so even if myspace required a credit card – and how the hell is that supposed to work anyway, 14 year olds don’t have visa – the girl would have been approved for the site).

I wonder if the girl even told mom, “Hey mom, dave is picking me up from school today” and mom said “okay hon” and never asked who dave was. This is like blaming doom for columbine when the parents confessed they never went in the kids (weapons filled) room because “they were told no” by the kids. We need some parent accountability in the US, badly.

(yes, I’m a parent of two girls)

I do beleive in both parent and internet accountability. Myspace is a wretched hive of scum and villainy and they know it. Parents need to have some vigilance about what their kids do, and they know it. The jury should award the mom some jail time for neglect, and the girl foster care and monies for counseling and education to replace what she should have been taught by her parents. Myspace should pick up the bill, and everyone gets what they deserve.

So whats the difference between this and a pen pal pretending he is somebody else? Lets sue the US Postal Service because they dont require an ID from somebody buying stamps. And while were at it, lets also sue AT&T because somebody could use a public phone and fake to be somebody else.

Seriously, sueing because the initial contact was made via a service that is based on social networking? Please. Sounds more like a case of bad parenting and trying to get rich.

As much as I despise Myspace, they shouldn’t have to pay a dime. They provide a community gathering place, that community will undoubtably be infested with the same sort of filth that’s out there in the real world, just like Live Journal before them, and AOL chatrooms before that. They’ve done all they can short of requiring full background checks into everyone that joins, if people choose to lie that’s their problem.

“Myspace is a wretched hive of scum and villainy and they know it.”

Myspace has, theoretically, 70 million users. Lets say 50% of these are unique accounts for posterity’s sake. It still, more than likely, has a lower percentage of sexual predators than California.

Saying myspace is responsible for this is simply another example of how a larger number of parents are teaching their kids that they are unable to make mistakes, and someone else is always to blame. Taking responsibility is a trait taught to fewer and fewer children these days. Kids misbehave, its the Internet/TV/Video games/teacher’s fault. A kid does something that gets them hurt, blame anything even remotely involved in the incident. It is not the parents fault, or the child’s fault, ever. What message does this send to the kids? They can get away with ANYTHING, if they find the right scapegoat. Authority figures can’t touch them, no matter what they do wrong, because of the wrath of the parents and their lawyers.

And people wonder why kids have behavioural problems.

If you’re curious about the sexual predators near you, enter in your address at http://www.familywatchdog.us/

You’ll be surprised at what you see.

It’s always hard to know what’s really going on behind the scenes of a case like this. The mother might be a meth addicted junkie who isn’t really sure how many kids she has at any given time, or she could be the best mom in the whole world. The truth is somewhere in between.

What shouldn’t be lost is this: a 14-year-old girl was molested by an adult. It’s probably not MySpace’s fault, and it may not have been the parent’s fault. Sometimes shit happens and there’s nobody to blame. But the hookup was made through MySpace, and I think that’s relevant.

Whether the lawsuit is frivilous or not (and I’m inclined to believe that it is) MySpace needs to step up to the plate. MySpace currently uses the “Hey officer, she told me she was 18″ defense. They need to do more. Not because of lawsuits or market share or because they’re eventually going to be in some aspirant politician’s cross-hairs, but because it’s the right thing to do. This is something that parents and MySpace need to work together on. Even something as simple as a $0.05 monthly credit card charge would at least give pretty good odds that an adult would see it show up on their statement. (yeah, there are about a zillion ways around this, but it’s better than the current system.)

It’s time for courts to give parents the kick in the ass they need and insist they take some responsibility for what their kids do. If your kids don’t go to school, the law comes after you for neglect. Although indeed, something needs to be done to the perpetrators of crime against children, when a child is able to get themselves in such situations, there should be some blame placed on the parents — it’s just as much a case of neglect.

Kids get entirely too much privacy these days and I’m guilty of it with my own child. Too many kids have their own TVs, stereos, radios, game consoles and computers away from family eyes and intervention, most likely in their own bedrooms. Why? So mommy and daddy don’t have to be disturbed with TV shows they don’t want to watch or music they don’t want to listen to or games they don’t want to see or hear. “Go to your room” is no longer a punishment because the kids have everything in their rooms they could possibly need or want.

Amber said:
What shouldn\’e2\’80\’99t be lost is this: a 14-year-old girl was molested by an adult. It\’e2\’80\’99s probably not MySpace\’e2\’80\’99s fault, and it may not have been the parent\’e2\’80\’99s fault. Sometimes shit happens and there\’e2\’80\’99s nobody to blame. But the hookup was made through MySpace, and I think that\’e2\’80\’99s relevant.

I think there might be someone at fault here. I am just going to throw this out there: the person who molested the girl might possibly be to blame. (Who is btw included in the lawsuit) The fact that they initially hooked up through MySpace isnt relevant. From the description in the story it looks more like a date rape than anything else. Date rape has been happening WAAAAY before the internet (hell back in the early 90’s we were given high school warnings about Date Rape).

I fall into the “parents should know what their kids are doing” camp, but I dont have kids so what the hell do I know.

I was going to post a substantive reply, but Neumann covered all the bases.

Amber said:
What shouldn\’e2\’80\’99t be lost is this: a 14-year-old girl was molested by an adult…
Sometimes shit happens and there\’e2\’80\’99s nobody to blame.

Neumann said:
I think there might be someone at fault here. I am just going to throw this out there: the person who molested the girl might possibly be to blame.

This is hyperbole. Of course the molester is to blame, and I’m sure the criminal courts are going to have something to say about that. But in terms of bad things happening to nice people, sometimes shit happens.

Even if you hold MySpace blameless (something I’m prepared to do), I’m saying that there’s a moral imperative for MySpace to work with parents to help make the MySpace experience a safe one. It’s like suggesting that bars help prevent rapists from club-drugging the drinks. That’s not the same thing as saying bars should be held liable for date rapes.

I’m fascinated at this mob mentality to attack the mother as an unfit parent, by the way. I haven’t seen anything that tells us about the mother. She may very well be an unfit parent, but at this point it’s only conjecture. Funny how we get all high and mighty when Hillary and Joe attack gamers as irresponsible, but we’re perfectly willing to do the same thing to someone else.

The guy should go to jail. Everyone else should feel guilty.

Girl meets stranger through e-mail and finds that some strangers are dangerous…

In other news,

Fire is hot.

Water is wet.

I wish I could sue someone into intervening on behalf of common sense when I plan to make a mistake, but in honestly I prefer to just rely on common sense.

Hey, Scott… I’m reading this from work… if I get fired, I’m going to sue you for lost wages! After all, there’s nothing in your iFAQ about not being allowed to read Broken Toys from your place of work! I bet you eat babies!

The reason everyone is quick to jump on the mother is that she’s filed a lawsuit blaming, at least partially, a third party company for something that Bad man X did to Girl Y. At least austensibly it falls in the vein of other suits like:

*Parent in SUV runs over (and kills) daughter and sues auto make because rear view cameras aren’t standard equipment

*Fat guy and fat teens sue McDonalds for making them fat

I could go on but you get the idea. The point that they’re making is “A bad thing happened to my daughter and IT’S NOT MY FAULT”. That’s generally why you file a lawsuit: you want someone to own up to their responsilibity in a monitary way. The problem here is that you’re saying that MySpace did something bad. But I fail to see how a free service that asks you the “standard” questions has somehow missed the mark. The key questions here are this

1. What more, in your eyes, does MySpace need to do besides ask “Are you a kidde predator?” What verification scheme would you use? Credit cards are a nice thought but why should their right to run a free site be impinged upon in such a manner? And what’s to stop tweenz from just starting their own blog on wordpress, blogger or any of the other free sites where they could just as easily be stalked?
2. Why is it that all the financial responsibility falls to MySpace? In fact, why do we not have a “loser pays” system where you might think twice about filing a lawsuit against a website who provided you a free webpage and assumed you’d be a responsible person and not, say, run off to meet person X whom you just met on the Internet?

The parent is always at fault.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/12/technology/12myspace.html?ei=5088&en=29b36e60a62e471e&ex=1302494400&adxnnl=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1150862743-VJAyUVjvtDn5otCHwBd9IQ

MySpace has “hired Hemanshu Nigam, director of consumer security outreach and child-safe computing at the Microsoft Corporation, to oversee safety, education and privacy programs and law enforcement affairs. Mr. Nigam has also served as a federal prosecutor of Internet child exploitation cases, an adviser to a Congressional commission on online child safety and an adviser to the White House on cyberstalking.” That was in April. To the people claiming MySpace “needs to do more” what more do you want?

And think about what you are asking… Verified ID? So, you want a company to force zero anonymity among it’s users – this is better how (for you, not for the guy staking you)? Might I also mention the freedom of speech issue here; anonymity is critial to the flow of free speech (McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission) – the goverment does not have the power to force MySpace to idenitfy it’s users, nor should it.

The internet is a phone line connected to your computer. If you don’t understand it, unplug it.

So, in fact, he was 1 year older than he claimed to be.

Do the mother and daughter think that you only become capable of sexual assault when you graduate from high school? A 14 year-old meeting an 18 year-old she doesn’t know is STILL stupid. He could have been exactly who he claimed to be and still assaulted her.

Behind every similar story there is probably an ambulance chasing lawyer telling distressed parents that it isn’t their fault, there just has to be a big bad corporation to blame instead.

There should be a way to ensure a lawyer involved in a frivolous lawsuit wouldn’t get paid…

There is; it’s called ‘loser pays’. However, the ambulance-chasers sure as hell aren’t going to stand for that, because it’d cripple their income flow. Couple that with how lawyers deliberately try to ensure juries are packed with the stupidest sheep on the planet, and, well… you get the idea.

–TR

Lawsuits like these make me wonder if I’m the only parent who actively monitors their kids online time/sites visited/who they talk to as much as I do their offline activities. I get called over-protective, but I know what my kids are doing at any given time. To the best of my understanding, that’s all part of the “parent” job.

Probably a junk lawsuit, whatever.

BUT – its IMPOSSIBLE to monitor everything your kid does. 24/7. Thats absurd blame the parents BS. one cause of the logistics of it, and two, cause if you want to have a good relationship with your kid, you WONT be on top of everything they do.

Back in the old days, when there WAS store bought butter, but a helluva lot less electronics, there WAS the possibility of bad stuff happening when your kid went out. But at least you had some control over your home.

I dont have an answer re “my space”. But im getting tired of folks blaming parents constantly, and saying how easy it is too parent against the junk filled culture.

Hillary, at least, is sympathetic.

“The internet is a phone line connected to your computer. If you don\’e2\’80\’99t understand it, unplug it. “

Can’t. Homework now comes over the internet. Teachers look at the kids funny when they ask for hard copies in class. Notifications of school events via email. Etc, etc.

Short of moving to Amish country, we dont got no choice.

Oldciver & others have it right.

1. It takes a lot of time to monitor your kids (I know because I do it)

2. Kids make multiple myspaces – and there is NO ACCOUNTABILITY because no real proof of ID is required. The CREDIT CARD soluation is very valid – kids would should have to supply a PARENTS email address & the parent would need to use it to respond with Credit card info. I WOULD BE HAPPY to pay a nominal fee so that my kids cannot access myspace w/o my knowledge. This would prevent item 3.

3. Todays kids are smart enough to create the myspace they don’t want parents to see elsewhere – and use pc’s other than the one at home to check them. They often have a “parent-approved” myspace too. It can be IMPOSSIBLE to find the one they don’t want you to see if it is never accessed from your home PC. (Try it – see how many kids have your kids’ name, like the same sports, etc).

4. Even after checking with every parent my kid visits, I still find that they get access outside my control, because other parents don’t always admit to not checking.

5. blame the parents – many of us do work very hard to instill values in our kids – and peer pressure & internet access interfere with those teachings every day. If you’ve never heard Bill Cosby talk about ‘brain damage’ in reference to kids & their memory about parental input, then you are not a parent and you don’t really get it.

6. yes, required for homework and now some schools don’t even issue BOOKS – kids have to use a webpage to learn the subject.