MySpace, Attorneys General Make Agreement: From the “Make Parents Feel Better” Playbook

In the wake of the Megan Meier story, MySpace has released their new “security” plan for “protecting” teens using the site. And if you can see the sarcasm dripping off my air quotes there, you are perceptive.

MySpace, in conjunction with the Attorneys General of 49 states, is forming a “landmark partnership” (their quotes, not mine, but sure, add the air quotes) to “protect children, purge predators and expunge inappropriate content including pornography.”

Apparently, however, no one ever let the Attorneys General near the tubes they are rushing to protect the children from. The new provisions will allow parents to submit (known) email addresses for their children to prevent them from signing up, and sets the profile of 16- and 17-year-olds to private. MySpace also agreed to hire a contractor to identify and remove pornographic images (note that it only says images) and head up some sort of newfangled technical task force to come up with an age and identity verification system for social networking sites.

If you've made it this far without laughing, you are doing well. Obviously, MySpace tossed the AGs a fake steak and they jumped all over it thinking it was the real deal. Email addresses are so easy to come by you can get one without blinking. The parents may not realize this, but the kids certainly do, and I refuse to believe that a teenager isn't smart enough to head on over to Yahoo and get themselves a brand-spanking new email address. They had to get a subpoena to crawl the site to find registered sex offenders before, and I'm going to believe that a contractor will be able to find any and all instances of “porn?” Let me know if they can do anything about online spam while they are at it.

The fact that the AGs not only bought this hook, line, and sinker, but held a press release to celebrate this momentous occasion says a lot about how far behind technology the government really is. Kids can get around almost anything, and these new “safeguards” aren't even a drop in the bucket toward doing something about the problems that exist.

I'm sure that the other social networks will follow suit in joining this bit of fluff, but someone ought to actually point out that this is all just a lot of hot air that those parents clamoring for an online babysitter will buy into. No one wants to make the tough decision to stand up and say “Hey parents, do your jobs. Know what your kids are doing online. Quit trying to be a friend and be a parent and teach THEM how to be safe online instead of expecting someone else to do it for you.”