MySpace saga
It really has become a saga. The internet is abuzz with it. First, eight attorneys general requested [pdf of request] that Myspace turn over the data it has collected via the Sentinel database of registered sex offenders on MySpace.Then, MySpace said that it had deleted sexual predator profiles.
The action comes a day after eight U.S. attorneys general demanded that the News Corp.-owned company hand over offenders’ names and addresses, and delete their profiles from among MySpace’s 175 million user base.”We’ve made it clear we have a zero tolerance policy against convicted sex offenders,” MySpace Chief Security Officer Hemanshu Nigam said in a phone interview on Tuesday. “We’ve said numerous times that the goal was to delete them.”
Finally, MySpace refused to turn over the data to the attorneys general, saying that it was prohibited by Federal privacy laws from doing so, unless ordered to via subpoena or warrant.
Christian Genetski, an attorney who has represented MySpace, said the Electronic Communications Privacy Act requires subpoenas, court orders or search warrants, depending on the information sought.”It’s a clearly defined law that most providers and prosecutors understand and work with on a daily basis,” said Genetski, who covers information security and Internet enforcement at a firm in Washington, D.C. “My understanding is (the attorneys general) want the private personal information, and that’s clearly the information the ECPA protects.”
Okay. So you probably know all of this already. So what do I think of it? I think the AsG are barking up the wrong tree. Really, how difficult is it for anyone to create a profile on MySpace? It doesn’t require that you enter your actual real first name (and I doubt that they can require that anyway) or last name or your real age (if you lie about it, so what? They’ll boot you. Boohoo.) or where you live or anything. Try it. Set up a completely fictitious profile on MySpace. What’s that going to get them? How are they going to prove that it was indeed the sexual predators that set up these profiles? It may just serve to publicize the issue, which may not be a bad tactic if that the was the goal.
What bothers me is those that may have inadvertently been deleted during MySpace’s “purge” of sexual predators. Then you’re almost forced to provide your real information to exonerate yourself. That’s guilty until proven innocent.
Instead of hounding MySpace, hound parents. Yeah, those people whose jobs the State is being forced to do. Perhaps parents need a “how to protect your kids from the dangers of the internet” class. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t be an idiot and give out your personal information to strangers on the web. Don’t talk to strangers on the phone. Don’t agree to meet strangers alone. Yada, yada, yada.
In loco parentis no more.
For additional coverage, see SOI, Windypundit, SexCrimes and my previous post.
Edit: So, in hindsight, maybe my tone was a little harsh toward parents. My point still remains, though. Greater control at home means less problems on the internet.
| Print article | This entry was posted by Gideon on May 16, 2007 at 7:42 pm, and is filed under sex offenders. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 4 years ago
Hi
I Agree with you will. Parents should be responsible for their children. Myspace is just a tool that can be used for good or evil. People need to look after themselves and their children.
about 4 years ago
Agreed, MySpace is really hard to police. But, even if parents practice heavy control at home, kids will still go to MySpace elsewhere. Just look at your local public library after 3:00pm on a school day to see the kids packed around the Junior Library computers…all MySpace’ing away.
about 4 years ago
Yeah, but it’s not as much the ability to turn off the computer as it is instilling values in the kids (and common sense).
Kids are increasingly being left to their own devices.
about 4 years ago
Yeah, but how are we going to reverse four decades of counter-culture moral relativism? How are most parents supposed to instill lasting values in their kids, when they’re being taught to play with condoms in Middle School, while being told that there’s really no right or wrong, just feelings?
Geez, I “feel” like setting up a MySpace site!
about 4 years ago
That’s a discussion for another day and not this forum
(In that, I have a lot to say, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t the right place to say it)
about 4 years ago
Last week after reading about the Attorneys General / Myspace brouhaha, I checked my son’s Myspace page. My son is a RSO for a consensual, short, stupid relationship with an underage girl who LIED about her age. He has since satisfied all terms of his conviction and is under no continuing court supervision. His public Myspace profile represents him as being male, over a decade older than his actual age, in an indeterminate city in his correct state. So much for any database finding him out.
Back while he was still on probation, before policing Myspace for RSO’s had reached the media’s radar screen, his ‘victim’ tried contacting him numerous times to get him to add her to his ‘friends’ list. He told his probation officer about it and was told that they could do nothing about her actions, but that he definitely must follow the ‘no contact’ order, which he certainly did follow.
His current account is recently created so that he can maintain contact with his current friends. Besides being an impossible task, prohibiting RSOs from using social networking sites is a constitutional freedom of association issue for law-abiding former offenders.