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The Blame MySpace Movement Gathers Steam
from the blame-the-party-that-has-the-money dept
The legal woes at MySpace keep piling up. Last summer, a mother and her daughter filed suit against the company, seeking $330 million, after a boy she met on the site sexually assaulted her. Now a new wave of lawsuits have been filed all on similar grounds, as the families of MySpace-borne sexual assault victims claim the company has been negligent when it comes to protecting its members from predators. Although the families' anger is understandable, the blame is clearly being misplaced. As we said after the first such case, if MySpace is somehow responsible for what happens on its network, then why not blame the ISP? Or why not blame a shopping mall if an attacker met their victim there? The families says that MySpace should have done more to enact security measures, but as the company's chief security officer points out, security is a two-way street. There's only so much MySpace can do, while the rest of the job has to be done by parents, who are in a position to teach their children about using common sense online. Somehow, we imagine, that the only ones who are going to benefit from this unfortunate situation are the lawyers.
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Reader Comments (rss)
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Re:
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"That's the spirit Frank! But I think a real number might be better."
-Adapted from Family Guy
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Can not wait until I can blame all my problems on
I long for a time where an accident was just an accident. You know, when something went wrong you just accepted it rather than hire a lawyer to sue someone who had nothing to do with it.
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Accountability
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.....
This is freakin' ridiculous.
I got an idea.. maybe the guy who sexually assaulted her is to blame? No, he probably doesn't have millions of dollars they can squeeze out of him, MySpace must have made him sexually assault her.
This really pisses me off. I need to go home and gank some people on World of Warcraft now. :-P
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Seriously $330 million, against a web site that lets people talk to each other. has anyone been in one of thous AIM chat rooms? I'm sure that has caused this a few times.
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Outofhand
I am not trying to downplay sexual assault- but this is beyond reasonable- it is correct that the only ones who will benefit will be the lawyers
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Re: Can not wait until I can blame all my problems
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And we all know...
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Parents everywhere...
Otherwise we'll end up with a generation of clueless morons standing around complaining about how life isn't fair...not that we don't already :(
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Parents are to blame
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Re: Outofhand
This has been done. A few years ago two fat girls tried to sue McDonalds because they ate there EVERYDAY and it made them FAT. But somehow, this is McDonald's fault? People will do anything these days to make their sorry selves look good. Those girls got fat because THEY made THEMSELVES fat. But hey, let's blame McDonald's -- that's so much better than actually admitting they did something...bad for themselves. Good heavens, the horror!!! Can't possibly fess up to your own mistakes and poor decisions. What the hell is this world coming to. Bottom line: I have no pity for what happened to that kid on myspace. it is 150% the PARENT'S fault and NO ONE ELSES. Parents -- if you're going to have kids, make sure you're willing to be INVOLVED in their lives. Supervise them, love them, care for them. If not, please wear a damn condom.
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If they win...
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just turn it around
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Who to Sue
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hmmm, come party at MyHouse, I don't care what hap
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Myspace is targeted for people 18 and up... soo many people sign up and lie about their age, because they aren't 18 yet. This girl was probably one of them. Notice there was no age or name mentioned
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target audience
Use of and Membership in the MySpace Services is void where prohibited. By using the MySpace Services, you represent and warrant that (a) all registration information you submit is truthful and accurate; (b) you will maintain the accuracy of such information; (c) you are 14 years of age or older; and (d) your use of the MySpace Services does not violate any applicable law or regulation. Your profile may be deleted and your Membership may be terminated without warning, if we believe that you are under 14 years of age.
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Seriously - the state should question their competency, along with the rest of the idiots who try this.
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assault me...
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RE: bag of shit
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OT: lmfao!
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Re: hmmm, come party at MyHouse, I don't care what
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Within a day he had bought the band's domain name, put together a decent site with plenty of mp3 downloads, a video or two, and a tour calendar.
Basically, MySpace is dead. Beyond just not using it, people are getting their accounts completely deleted because they don't even want to show up on it.
I'm sure that MySpace will contiinue to spin all kinds of absolutely fabricated traffic numbers, but they have one foot on a banana peel in their grave...
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Re: target audience
"your use of the MySpace Services does not violate any applicable law or regulation"
I'm sure soliciting minors for sexual activities counts.
With however many millions of people using MySpace every day how can they see that one person saying evil things, if he said anything like that at all. It could have been "Hay were friends now. wanna get together some time" not raising any automated flags. Should have raised flags from her and her mother.
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reasonable precautions
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/01/18/1168709870508.html
MySpace 'spy' tool for parents
The popular online hangout MySpace.com has been quietly developing software designed to give parents the bare-bones of what their kids are doing on the site.
The tool, which will alert parents of the username, age and location a child lists on personal MySpace pages known as profiles, is designed to spark conversations about Internet safety.
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Re: reasonable precautions
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Beyond Legalities
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Re:
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Blame
I guess if they burned themself playing with matches, they would blame the match company too.
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Blame the matches
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I wonder if the guy called her
What we need a law allowing judges and juries to force the plaintiff and his attorney to pay the defendant up to the amount of damages being sought, if it determines that the suit is frivolous and predatory.
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Re: Blame the matches
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Blame the matches2
Unsupervised child fire play resulted in severe burns to a six-year-old girl in 1998. A jury recently awarded the child $5 million in damages in a lawsuit against BIC, the alleged maker of the lighter involved....the lighter had inadequate child-resistant mechanisms. Expert witnesses for the plaintiff testified that BIC lighters did not meet the specifications of the CPSC standard for child resistance.
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whose fault is it???/
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People lie about themselves online?!?!
One thing-- in the discussion about ages above-- that everyone seems to forget is that if a minor is truthful about their age then their profile automatically becomes un-veiwable to anyone 18 and over unless that minor invites that person to be their friend. That is a perfect example of what myspace can, and has, done to change the game to help avoid these types of situations. The only reasons this suit has come up 1) precedent set by that last bitch
2) that group that showed that myspace was capable of screening it's members list against the national predator list.
Of course, if 15 year old girls would just stop lying about their age then those predators wouldn't ever have been able to befriend them and it wouldn't have mattered. Unless those guys lied about their identity, in which case the screening wouldn't have done squat
Of course some of those cases involved same age male and female meetings, in which case the girls are guilty of a whole different type of bad judgment. And that is the parents fault for not raising children with the ability to take care of themselves/keep themselves out of trouble.
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Re: whose fault is it???/
Last I saw, the vast majority of child abuse is perpetrated by parents. But that doesn't get audience share like INTERNET PREDATORS -- IS YOUR CHILD AT RISK? The trouble with all this bullshit grandstanding by the media and the pols is that some people, like the jerkoff parents in this case, take it to be reality, and find some shyster ready to take their so-called case.
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sue 'em all
Whatever happened to "don't talk to strangers." Parent's used to be responsible for teaching their kids that...
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a lot of things dont make sense in this country anymore, the mass majority of the population is completley and utterly ignorant.
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Re: hmmm, come party at MyHouse, I don't care what
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ISP's fault
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Re: reasonable precautions
They're probably making pages to make themselves look like kids. That's the great(?) thing about Myspace. 14 year old little girls can say they're 18, and 34 year old perverts can say they're 16.
Spying on your child won't fix it. Education is the only way to go.
On another point, I'd like to hear what you and these parents think a good solution would be? Should myspace ask for your social security (or tax ID) number and perform background checks?
It seems like a similar situation as youtube.. they aren't responsible for what you do/put up on their site, they're just hosting it for you.
It's called personal accountablilty.
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Re: Re: reasonable precautions
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OK, so they sue
You can't just complain about the problem, if you cant come up with how to fix it. not just its your falut give me some money for pain and suffering.
freaking lawyers.
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Re: OK, so they sue
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Re: Re: reasonable precautions
It's called personal accountablilty.
You're right there. But how about social responsibility on the part of MySpace? This is not the first case that happened over that site.
Though I believe that parents have responsibility and all those blame the parents blah blahs...what's MySpace going to do with it? It's a vicious cycle. I've never heard of it in other sites. It's always over there. What's wrong?
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My mother made sure that when I used the internet I knew what NOT to do. She kept the computer in the family room and I could use it when she was there. She trusted I wouldn't do anything stupid like give out my address or agree to meet some 40 year old skeeve pretending to be 14 because she had made the consequences very clear. That was her responsibility - to make sure I was safe when I went on the internet. Parents are responsible for making sure their children keep safe when they use the internet.
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Re: Re: Re: reasonable precautions
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parents
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