MySpace plans age restrictions
 

quote:

NEW YORK - MySpace.com is planning new restrictions on how adults may contact its younger users in response to growing concerns about the safety of teenagers who frequent the popular online social networking site.
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The site already prohibits kids 13 and under from setting up accounts and displays only partial profiles for those registered as 14 or 15 years old unless the person viewing the profile is already on the teen's list of friends.

Under the changes, announced Wednesday and taking effect next week, MySpace users who are 18 or over could no longer request to be on a 14- or 15-year-old's friends' list unless they already know either the youth's e-mail address or full name.

Any user will still be able to get a partial profile of younger users by searching for other attributes, such as display name. The difference is that currently, adults can then request to be added to a youth's list to view the full profile; that option will disappear for adults registered as 18 and over.

However, users under 18 can still make such contact, and MySpace has no mechanism for verifying that users submit their true age when registering. That means adults can sign up as teens and request to join a 14-year-old's list of friends, which would enable the full profiles.

"There is far less than meets the eye in these newly announced MySpace measures," Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said in a statement. "These steps are inadequat
e because they lack any age verification and leave the minimum age too low."

The partial profiles display gender, age and city. Full profiles describe hobbies, schools and any other personal details a user may provide.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060621/...ltBHNlYwM3MTY-

MySpace also will beef up its ad-targeting technology, so that it can avoid displaying gambling and other adult-themed sites on minors' profile pages and target special public-service announcements to them.

lol they shouldn't have done anything at all... people need to stop bitching. either tell your kids they can't have myspace or let them have it. if they get raped then most likely you haven't done your job as a parent. shouldn't be adding people they don't know anyway.

MySpace officials say the new restrictions have been long planned and are unrelated to recent events.

Damn and I hoped they would just be banning anyone over the age of 18 off of it.

:thumbsup

LOL in other words, Pedophiles will just need to register an account with a birthdate that says they are also underage, and they can continue to browse/contact little kids freely.

Great job myspace, this will go a long way in accomplishing NOTHING AT ALL. :1orglaugh

Well, I guess they did get the news to say they are taking action, too bad most reporters are idiots and cant see this is really nothing.

These changes seem reasonable to me.
WG

about time

since when is it myspace's responsability to take over the parental units role... if i had kids they wouldnt be running the streets at all hours of the night and they sure as fuck wouldnt have a myspace acct until they were 16.. the solution to the problem is making myspace 18 and over only...

i am sick of hearing parents and the press going after companies for not doing the parents job...:2 cents:

now predators can request their preys full name as an excuse to add them to their friends list. a last name with location can be dangerous and 14-15 year olds are stupid enough to give out that info to get that cute popular guy on their top8

it's about time myspace had an age restriction, but it probably won't stop someone bsing their age and all.

maybe we should start pressuring microsoft to implement filtering software in their new os. parents will still ignore it most likely, but those who dont can setup restricted accounts with their childs birth date that will filter content out that they shouldnt be viewing, gradually unlocking it as they age.

Which is where the lack of age verification comes to play.. Just as Yahoo had kids signing as 18, then putting their real age on their profile...

Hard to govern on a free site..

1.) parents need to *gulp* PARENT their children (wild concept, i know!)
2.) myspace should be 18+ (with a valid cc or something to verify) for those parents who arent doin their job(s). would save a LOT of children from being molested or whatever.

you think myspace would survive with 18+ only accounts WITH verification? :1orglaugh

I never said it was. I donno why you quoted me.

of course not

but may be age verification would be required to access porn star profiles

If a kid is giving out his full name or other private information, I'd say its the parents fault for not teaching them some basic sense. What ever happened to not talking to strangers...
WG

Why should porn star profiles be singled out? Yeah, I miss the days when blacks had to use separate facilities from whites too, but I really don't want to see those days again anytime soon for porn stars. :2 cents:

same reason porn star material is singled out in bookstores silly

Smut being separated in a bookstore (minus an adult bookstore lmao) is a bit different than porn stars w/profiles on a free-to-use service. They shouldn't have to be singled out because of their life style choices. Why not single out gay peoples profiles? Why not religious zealots? I would much rather see a Christians profile being 18+ requirement to view than a porn stars.

I agree, someday people need to take responsibility for themselves and there children.

not only do porn star profiles contain information about their explicit lifestyle containing mature themes, they also link to their adult sites. jenna has banners with code on her profile for fans to place them on their profiles. these banners link to her adult site. myspace profiles should not be linking to adult sites or contain adult related themes. since some do, put those behind the counter metaphoricilly speaking

i agree completely. my point is lets not give a reason for this info to be passed around. the sad fact is many kids dont see people they interact with online as strangers as we see with the problems originating from myspace that led to these changes.

Uh that was my point. Their lifestyle is their lifestyle of choosing. Unless you start singling out fags and religious zealots, you don?t need to censor ANYONE ELSE. Until I see Christians and Jews?s profiles being slapped with a 18+ label (and I think we all can agree here religion is far more damaging to society than seeing tits of a chick) then they need to step off from censoring porn stars myspace profiles. And for Xenu?s sake, where are the parents during all of this? Why can?t they step up to the plate and actually do something for once rather than putting the burden on people who created perhaps the best social networking service available today (other than baseball games)?

ok, lets get back to real life here.

why does borders books put mature content behind the counter?

because they dont want sticky mags in their bathrooms?

what if your 18 and your sister is 14, you cant add her to your myspace friends list?

reread the article

id assume you'd know your "sisters" full name or email address
http://www.donandmurph.com/rainbow_3.jpeg

If she requests it you can. Also:

Myspace is full of pedo's...

wouldn't know
never met any . . .

i think they should do it...

pedo alert

lol

hey u must be a parent lol

I concur

Duke

Simple solution. Start charging to have a profile on myspace. Doesn't have to be a lot. If some sicko wants to register as 14 year old he has to use his REAL CC info.