Myspace and the travis county teen tragedy-my thoughts

[noahmijo]

By creating an account with MySpace you in agreement with its policies namely that it is NOT their responsibility if you are negligent enough to display your personal information or if you allow your child to do so.

Myspace is NOT under the law in ANY way much less do they have any obligation to provide any such protections. It is not funded by your tax dollars and it does not generate profit from consumers directly rather from ad space, tshirts, ect.

We don't need to tell people like the founder of Myspace that they need to be more responsible-PARENTS need to start being more responsible ADULTS need to start being more responsible. This isn't anywhere near a case where the big bad guy ripped off the little guy. Like I said Myspace is a FREE service NOT funded by the government in anyway nor by consumer fees.

Myspace does not conduct any sort of marketing that tells children to join up and tell the world who they are. People are free to display as little as information as they want, and if they are incapable of bearing this "harsh" responsibility then either they are children whose parents should be supervising them anyway, or they are too negligent and irresponsible to partake in such an endeavor that they should avoid the site completely.

Myspace already takes the responsibility to remove vulgar or obscene postings and pages from its servers-that in my opinion is being more responsible than they even need to be.


What's more I don't see anyone suing porno sites when any child who knows how to type in "porn" could have complete access to thousands of adults pictures and videos given the fact that the vast majority of parents will never take time to learn how to censor websites.

This woman was negligent with her child and the fault of this tragedy lies with her and the attacker. Her daughter is indeed a victim of this, however suing a an organization that does not profit from consumer fees or is survived by your tax dollars for the actions of some sick bastard is clearly a cry of opportunity not closure.

When people start to call for other parties to take the responsibility that adults should be taking concerning how to deal with innovations and ideas that promote a wider spread of communication they are laying the seeds of censorship.

[Jed Dilligan]

1. Please fill me in on the "teen tragedy" (link)?

I know someone was suing myspace but I didn't think that was tragic (ie, no one died).

[rinsd]

5. A young girl was raped by someone she met via MySpace

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13437619/

[TexasProgresive]

8. Earlier thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1463611

[rinsd]

2. I agree with your sentiment but myspace is not non-profit.

Rupert Murdoch doesn't spend half a billion dollars on something that does not make money.

It makes its money like many other websites including at least partially this one, through internet ads.

They also do big promotions with some movie studios(they make the homepage background deal with the movie being promoted).

[noahmijo]

4. I forgot to mention that they do take donations and such but my point

was was that the consumer does not officially pay for their services. You don't create an account agree to pay some kind of fee in which the company agrees to perform services for you that assist with security measures.

I updated the post to reflect a more accurate portrayal of Myspace's business dealings.

Thanks

[rinsd]

7. Partially.

They do not take donations. They make alot of money off of internet ads.

Here's a an indepth article dealing with their sale.

http://www.adastro.com/apogee/myspace.html

"You don't create an account agree to pay some kind of fee in which the company agrees to perform services for you that assist with security measures."

True. And I agree that their legal liability is just not there for what happened to that girl.

[Cronus Protagonist]

3. Don't forget all the cop ads on there trying to trap pedos

They make the place look like it's a sex service for 14 year olds, and again, as you noted, still there is no excuse for your child advertising him or herself for sex like the cops do.

Educate A Freeper - Flaunt Your Opinions!
http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

[Ariana Celeste]

6. You're right!

:thumbsup: This is the most sensible post I've seen on the matter- and I completely agree! It's a sorry thing what happened to that girl, but we need to look at the story rationally. The website wasn't liable at all.

[noahmijo]

11. It's kind of like when some kid was beaten and raped to death long ago

don't quite remember when but it was one of those stories the Republicans used to bash the ACLU.

So this sick bastard rapes and kills this poor male kid. It turns out he's a member of NAMBLA.

The kid's parents sue NAMBLA and hold them responsible for the murder.

Well NAMBLA is a sick sick organization (and I hope you all rot) BUT the charge here is murder and nowhere in its doctrine does NAMBLA advocate murdering
children. It'd be a totally different (but still arguable on points) case if the charge was just rape, however overall the charge was murder and as sick as NAMBLA is
the culprit was one sick man not an entire organization which although advocates sick actions never advocated committing murder.

The ACLU made this point clear when it took the case.

[Jed Dilligan]

9. Yes, it isn't myspace's fault

It's the girl's own fault and her parent(s). Either she should have been mature enough to use myspace responsibly, or her parents should not have allowed her to use myspace. It's pretty simple, really. The mom should be suing herself.

[Fleshdancer]

12. I don't think blaming the 14yr old for getting raped is the answer

The person to blame was the asshole who claimed he was in high school, knowingly met a 14 yr old and then sexually assaulted her. His excuse? His lawyer was on the local news last night saying that the guy "didn't know that having sex with a 14 yr old was illegal". He wanted to sue MySpace too believe it or not.

I'm all for blaming her parents for not knowing what she was doing online and who she was meeting with. The idea that her mother is suing MySpace is insane.

[Jed Dilligan]

13. So we agree

My point is she could either take responsibility for herself or her mom could. And it's her mom's responsibility to know how responsible she is, and to know what she's into.

I'm not interested in talking about the rapist, everyone blames the rapist, there is no argument. The question on the board is where the civil liability lies.

[Fleshdancer]

14. thanks for the clarification...

However, having the rapist also sue MySpace does technically bring him into the civil liability argument as well. All in all, this is a very messed up situation.

[Jed Dilligan]

15. Yeah, I wasn't aware of that but

it improves myspace's defense, at least in the court of public opinion. "Look, everyone's suing myspace. The rapist is blaming us for the rape he committed. We simply had nothing to do about it. If he had stalked her with love letters, would you be suing the U.S. Postal Service?"

[MichiganVote]

10. Mother guilty of negligence, perp guitly of rape, kid guilty of...er...

being a kid, probably with a few problems. I fail to see how MySpace is collabortive in any way with the perp of the crime, the negligence of the mother or the immaturity of the kid.

[RevolutionStartsNow]

16. This could have happened anywhere on the internet, including DU

There is no way for any website to verify the ages of people who sign up, without setting up extensive identity checking that just isn't realistic.

Anyone can make a fake profile and pretend to be someone they are not. That's both the appeal and the danger of the Internet.

We've been talking to our children about this since they were old enough to work a mouse. They both know that people are not always who they seem, online. Children can be very gullible, and predators know and exploit this. The only way to prevent this from happening -- short of keeping your kids off the internet altogether -- is to educate teens about the dangers. Make them question everything.

I have a lot of opinions about MySpace beyond the fact that it clearly attracts predators. It's a huge time waster and is full of a lot of inappropriate things that kids would never say if they weren't online. But on the positive side it has helped my daughter (through her private profile) get to know some local kids she might not otherwise talk to (friends of friends), and she has also discovered a lot of great otherwise unknown musicians. Personally I'd like to see it just go away, but I'll be patient -- these things do tend to flame out.

[noahmijo]

17. Don't forget the connections progressives make

alot of anti-bush anti-war groups have sprung up on myspace.

Fortunately this outlet for communication will not go away anytime soon.