March 31, 2006 1:05 PM PST
MySpace growth continues amid criticism
- Related Stories
-
Two arrested in child sex Web probe
March 2, 2006 -
Rivals try to sing along with MySpace
December 12, 2005
MySpace, which has accumulated 67 million members since its launch in 2004, is currently growing by an average of 250,000 new members daily, said Dani Dudeck, a MySpace spokeswoman. That phenomenal growth rate has pushed its ranking among popular sites to a par with such notable players as Yahoo.
With that growth, however, MySpace has come under increasing scrutiny. Earlier this month, for example, two men were arrested in separate incidences for allegedly engaging in sexual contact with minors, whom they met through MySpace. One of the minors was 14 years old and the other was 11.
Ross Levinsohn, an executive with News Corp., which acquired MySpace last year , addressed the steps the site is taking to keep its younger members safe. According to press reports, Levinsohn, who was speaking Thursday before the Bank of America Media Telecommunications and Entertainment Conference in Los Angeles, noted that the site takes down offensive content, from nudity to racist material.
MySpace, which requires its members to be at least 14 years or older to use the site, also will remove user profiles that fail to adhere to its policy. Since its debut in 2004, MySpace has removed 250,000 profiles of underage users, Dudeck noted. Dudeck declined to disclose the total number of profiles that have been removed for violations of the company's policy.
Regardless, the number is likely to represent a fraction of MySpace's user base, said executives from rival community sites Friendster and Tribe Networks.
"We're probably taking down 1,000 to 2,000 a week," said Kent Lindstrom, president of Friendster. "Every community site has to deal with pornography, hate messages or violent content."
But if MySpace is wrestling with offensive or illegal materials more than competitors, it may have to do with two issues. First, said Lindstrom and Jan Gullett, chief executive of Tribe Networks, much of MySpace's trouble comes from the demographic it targets--the preteen and teenage groups, which often need more guidance about acceptable behavior. The second problem, said Lindstrom, is that MySpace adopted a hands-off approach to the site early in its evolution.
Such a policy fostered an "anything goes mentality" which created an atmosphere of permissiveness on the site, said Lindstrom.
"That goes a long way with teens and preteens," Lindstrom said. "We've always taken (policing the site) very carefully, perhaps to a fault. But on the other hand, the same kind of culture never developed on our site."
MySpace, however, contends that many of its users are much older than people realize.
"Nearly 80 percent of our members are 18 years or older, and that speaks for itself," Dudeck said.
She added that the company does not take a "hands-off approach" to its user base, pointing to its other ongoing efforts to keep younger members safe.
MySpace assigns roughly 90 employees, a third of its workforce, to the task of monitoring the safety and security of members, Dudeck said. Using search and algorithm technologies, MySpace employees will review information for such inconsistencies as claiming to be a 14-year-old member while putting information in a profile about a 7th grade teacher and class.
As a result of the site's research, members who are not 14 or older will have their profiles removed, she said. MySpace also limits the amount of information displayed on profiles posted by 14- to 16-year-old members. If those members want to let a person view their entire profile, they can accept the potential visitor's request for full access. But the individual who gains access to the full profile is prohibited from allowing others to view the profile, Dudeck said.
See more CNET content tagged:
MySpace,
Tribe Networks,
member,
profile,
minor
Myspace does what it can with 90 employees: Look for obvious underage profiles and remove them. Look for racist profiles and remove them.
The best way to stop grown men from meeting underage kids like that? A parent doing his or her job.
I say their "search and algorithm technologies" aren't nearly effective enough as she has, or had until I made take it off, her birthplace, hometown, birthdate, age, grade, school, and a whole bunch of other crap that the whole world does NOT need to see.
My question... What sort of security are they using to protect children?
- The don't even use something as simple as SSL when you login to modify your account settings.
- The don't enforce complex passwords.
There are any number of other steps that could be taken but if they don't use the two most basic I certainly don't have any faith that they are using anything else.
It's time to hold these people accountable for what they do or don't do!
other. And ID fraud in many forms have been happening
excessively.
I did a few things. The every kid in the family got a Mac of some
sort from me (I footed the bit). That killed lots of problems. The
second was erasing a good amount of the asked info from the
site, and now, after about a year, the fake apps and papers and
stuff in the mail have stopped. I've also installed other things,
but I'm into stuff like that (rotating IP box, etc. etc.)
Again, it's the parents who need to know what their kids are
doing. All of the computers in the house are in one room, and
I'm in the room if they want access. Password protected, so forth
and so on.
Don't chat with names they don't know, don't give out phone
numbers, etc. etc. I hear from many other parents about
myspace.com's problems. Well . . . I keep up on what kids do in
my house, I don't know about them.
Besides, the kids seem to hog the computers mainly for Sims 2
these days.
If a child meets a sex offender online, goes off to meet up with them, an dis abused. It's not the fault of the profile company, its the fault of the kids parents for
A) Not warning them about the dangers
B) Not properly supervising them while they were online
C) Letting them run off to meet a guy that they met online in the first place.
If parents talked to their kids and took more responsibility for them, rather than siting them down in front of the TV and the inernet all day, we wouldn't be reading articles like this.
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme?entry=myspace_meme
dont let your daughter do it. There are many things you can put on
the computer to restrict her access all together. If she started
dialng 1-900- pnone numbers you'd probably call the phone
company and put a block on those numbers right? Same idea.
It's a parent's job to make sure their kids learn not to steal - but society must take action if parents fail. It's a parent's job to make sure their kids don't get beaten - but society must stop those parents who beat their children. It's a parent's job to make sure their kids learn about sex so they can be safe - but society must take steps to educate children who don't get that education at home.
Maybe some of these points can be argued due to individual philosophical and religious differences, but it's inarguable to me to allow children to suffer for the shortcomings of their parents. Our duty in society, our primary objective is and always should be, to protect our youth.
That being said, I do believe that MySpace could do more, but I think they are already taking all reasonable measures to protect the privacy of all their members. I don't expect my child's school to post police in a perimeter around the school every day during drop-off and pick-up. It would make my child safer, but it's unreasonable. I don't expect child services to post an agent in every house in the country. It would insure the safety of children with abusive parents, but it's unreasonable. And I don't expect MySpace to hire a crew of 10,000 (if that's even enough) to make sure they look at every single profile and remove all the bad guys and kids who post too much.
Just this month, my family went thru some tough times as our son had a lapse of judgement and runaway. Missing for 2 weeks but now He is back, safe with us once again. I have to tell you that it was the most grueling and worst feeling I've felt in my life. I don't wish this on any mom or parent.
For days there was no clue to where we could find him then suddenly we had a break. A popular site Myspace.com have the information that would lead us to where our son is. Unfortunately Myspace.com denied us of that information, sighting that it is a PRIVACY ISSUE.
Since MySpace.com Terms of Use Agreement under #12 Disclaimers. include the following,
"Under no circumstances shall MySpace.com be responsible for any loss or damage, including personal injury or death"
I guess they do not feel any kind of responsibility or have the GOOD CONSCIENCE of divulging that information that would lead to the location of a Missing Minor Child who they are aware could be in grave danger.
I am very glad we found our son, No thanks to Myspace.com. I am also very sad and furious that such people(Myspace.com Founders, Tom Anderson & Chris DeWolfe), such company with NO GOOD CONSCIENCE exist.
I have come to explain to our parents that MySpace does not consider them the customer. Therefore, they will be given the runaround whenever they attempt to block their own children from developing sites on MySpace.
I deeply believe that MySpace is responsible not to these preteens, but to the adults raising them and the communities affected by them.
Let's come together as a society and put pressure on News Corp, which recently bought MySpace, to make a stand that supports the adults who are trying to assist preteens through these sensitive self-image forming years!
- Age & Identity Verification
-
by kalsandhu
July 9, 2007 11:54 PM PDT
- Social networks can be safe if they use the technology from a small company called Genmobi Technologies, inc. Check www.genmobi.com
-
Reply to this comment
-
-
See all 25 Comments >>