Neowin.net

Pointless. People will still lie about their age and use fake profiles, it just removes the most obvious cases where people don't hide it.

exactly....they should be looking at the 'parents' and quit trying to justify their poor excuse for a parent...and force them to take the responiblity for their kids. If the internet is so dangerous..then don't let them have internet access.

This is a terrible idea really . . good try, but predators are still going to easily get around it. It is too easy to be annoyamous on the net . . as for a better idea . . I don't have any really. I don't use myspace, and don't plan too, but there must be a better way to verify age nowadays. I also agree that the parents should take action to prevent this.. and monitor your childs activities online.

It's sad when you need MySpace to do the parenting for you. For the parents that keep an eye on their kids, I applaud your dedication! We need more true parents, and not third parties teaching our kids. Teach your kids from the get-go, right from wrong (i.e. sharing private info on net is wrong) and we wouldn't have this going on. I mean, come on ... do we need a ratings board for the internet for every freaking website, like the gaming industry has now for gaming? Look at the ESRB, has that stopped lawsuits from coming in because of negligent parents not being able to distinguish the letter E or T from the letter M or A?

To the parents who sue, get your ass off the *bleep*ing couch and interfere into your kids lives. I know that no one should get raped on sexually assaulted, but it was your fault for not protecting your child. Log their net activity, limit computer access for school reports only, and place the computer in a family room where nothing can be hidden. As technology changes, so do parenting techniques ... but that is no excuse for you not to monitor them.

I'd rather the parents do their job right and Myspace work on actually improving the whole system so it's not in the gutter anymore. O_o

All of these parenting comments on here are stupid. Parents can't be present to monitor their children's online activities 24/7. Many parents out there also aren't anywhere near as computer savvy as their children, so you can't rely on laughable programs like NetNanny to ease this load.

The problem is is the very concept of MySpace, which encourages people to come online, post personal information and photos, publically blurb out every little detail about their personal lives in blog form, as if it's some sort of private diary, and then make friends with other people and read all this about each other.

Why don't you blame parents for software and media piracy too, for failing to educate their children about right and wrong? Give me a break...

Don't blame parents for the ****ed up, law and order lacking state that our poor world wide web is currently in.

The proves just once more that parents have no control over their kids, if they can't freaking watch them.
When people choose to have kids to have the responsibility to watch their kids and make surethey are not getting into trouble, or nothing is going wrong with them.

Last edited by Scutley on 22 Jun 2006 - 06:50

Jesus Christ.
The parents should just disallow the children from meeting this weird people and it would all be OK.
I know I wouldn't be allowed to, nor would I try to!!
People miss the point of Myspace, it's to set up a community of YOUR OWN Friends.

Don't be silly. Of course those who wish to will get around it. These modifications aren't about protecting children - they're about limiting MySpace's liability. If they force these people to lie about their age (and therefore break the T&Cs of the website) then MySpace cannot be found to be at fault when they do something unthinkable.

hotdog963al, that's the second time in 2 days I've seen a post from you and agreed 100% with it.

I use MySpace for two purposes - to network with old friends who I rarely see nowadays, and to network with artists of music I listen to. If I get requests from people I don't know they get denied. Then again, I doubt paedos go after 6'4 18 year old males.

Sounds like its the best that MySpace can do really.

MySpace have covered their asses. That's about all there is to these new 'security measures'.

How about the lawsuit goes ahead

Frankly, children need to be taught some self restraint and a bit of street smarts. Ok, more than a bit of street smarts. We coddle and shelter our children from the realities of this world far to much, and it isn't doing them any favors. Children need to know how dangerous the world is and how to defend themselves. We can't be there all the time to protect them much as we'd like to. Sooner or later they'll have to fend for themselves, so you might as well give them the tools.

Won't make a difference. The parents just looking for someone else to blame won't be satisfied.

At the end of the day it down to the children & parents. MySpace can do as much as they want but they problem will still allways be there. No matter how many times kids get told about the dangers of giving personal details or meeting up with someone online they seem to think they'll be safe.

This isn't just an issue with MySpace, nor is this something new. Predators have been exploiting children on the Internet and in chat rooms since the beginning. MySpace has just become the most popular site for meeting new people and networking. Say a child fakes their age and uses the phone dating service. Are you going to sue the phone company next? I can understand that many parents these days are working too many hours of the day to have a constant eye on their children. That's exactly why they've invented monitoring software from many popular vendors. Teaching your children about the dangers involved is important, not to mention there is no less danger from just meeting someone off the street or in a store. We live in a day when the blame is always put on someone else rather than ourselves. At least MySpace is doing something even if it isn't close to fool-proof, but what else can they really do? And if you sue myspace, better sue everyone else like Friendster and LiveJournal. Maybe this is a good example why kids should be outside or with their friends doing other activities instead of sitting in front of a computer all night lowering their metabolic rate.

Not all predators are guilty

http://www.alienlovespredator.com/index.php?id=186

What a joke! Myspace will only fix their problems when they get sued! Mark my words!

Just like every company in the world. Myspace does not benefit by protecting their users. In fact they loose money!

This is just another publicity stunt!

Yeah, there's no point in MySpace doing this. There is still going to be people lying about their age.